


Rebirth

by sprosslee



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Pains, Growing Up, Kissing, M/M, Sex between the lines, Slow Burn, Swearing, lots of fucks, no graphic sex scene, otayuri - Freeform, sleeping troubles, sweet tooth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:51:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9847289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprosslee/pseuds/sprosslee
Summary: When Yuri Plisetsky wins Gold everybody including himself thinks that he’ll continue his winning streak. But things don’t always turn out as planned. Sometimes it takes a good friend and reinventing yourself to make it back to the top.





	1. Agape / Unconditional love

**Author's Note:**

> Who can resist Yuri on Ice and the pairing Otabek/Yuri? I certainly can’t.

Still shaking, he realizes that he might have just won the Grand Prix. Yes, he’s heard the results via loudspeaker. It’s just that his overtired brain can’t process the information at all. Hasn’t he fucked up one of his jumps? Wasn’t Yuuri Katsuki better? Didn’t he just break Victor’s record?

But then, slowly, very slowly, the truth seeps in. His hard work paid off. All the sweat and the sore muscles and the pain—they were worth it. The other Yuuri didn’t win. He did. The audience breaks out in ecstatic cheers. Yakov shouts. Yuri shouts too, some incoherent bits of words that don’t make sense at all. He did it. He fucking did it.

“Congratulations,” Otabek says later. He holds a hideous teddy bear with eyebrows as expressive as his when he waits for Yuri at the side of the rink.

Yuri gives him a fist bump because it seems like the only reasonable thing to do. “You should’ve won bronze,” he says lamely. “You were so much better than JJ.”

“Maybe I was.” Otabek’s eyes are a bit sad. Or is this his new friend’s default face? After only a few hours of knowing the other man Yuri can’t exactly tell. “But I’m proud of you.”

* * *

 

They stand right next to the hors-d'oeuvre table watching the other skaters from a distance. Mickey and Sara seem to argue once more while Emil observes the situation with a loving smile. JJ is there and still looks a bit confused by how he could end up on the podium when he completely messed up his short program. Yuri rolls his eyes and turns away. And of course Yuuri and Victor are all over each other, constantly touching. Both of them seem to beam.

“I don’t get how the katsudon can be so happy just winning silver,” Yuri gnarls through his teeth and stuffs two ridiculously small cupcakes into his mouth.

“He’s here with his date. That’s why.” Otabek takes a sip of his own juice and looks in Yuuri and Victor’s direction with a strange expression on his face. Yuri entertains the suspicion that Otabek only ordered a non-alcoholic drink because he’s here with him, an underage teen. Somehow he can perfectly picture the other man getting drunk and finally losing his cool composed face over some high-end vodka. Maybe this would loosen him up a bit.

“Why are you smiling? Is this a smile? Or do you have face spasms? Fuck, your face is hard to read.”

Otabek glances at him and shows his teeth. “That’s my signature smile, you guessed correctly.”

“Thanks for telling me. Why are you smiling?”

“I’m happy too,” Otabek says.

“So I’m your date or what?” Yuri asks out of sheer impulse and right before his brain can fully process what he’s just heard. When he does, he immediately takes a big gulp of his freshly squeezed orange juice and regrets his decision a heartbeat later because the acidity burns in his throat. He starts coughing like mad.

“Displacement activity,” Otabek mumbles almost inaudible, quickly putting away his own juice glass and hitting Yuri on the back harshly. “You—whack—are—whack—such a cat—whack—sometimes.”

Yuri almost crumbles. “Fuck, you’re strong!” he gasps between coughs.

Otabek tilts his head in an almost playful way. “You’ve seen me jump so you already know that. I’m a strong dark horse.”

Yuri is glad for the change of topic. Ice-skating is something he knows a lot about, it’s something he feels safe conversing about with this almost any stranger who wants to be his friend and, as Yuri must admit, Otabek has a very strange sense of humor. “Yes, I do. You did great out there. And I think you should’ve won bronze, not that idiot JJ. Your execution was almost flawless and that fucker—”

“Stop calling his name. He’s already looking at us.”

“Shit. I think he wants to come over!” Yuri whispers.

Otabek gives him one of his signature deadpan looks. “Want to go?”

“Oh, hell yes.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t care. Don’t you have a cool bike or something?”

* * *

 

They end up at the nearest coffee shop. Yuri clings to a cup of black tea that, realistically speaking, isn’t as good as at home because the water isn’t at the perfect temperature, it’s not made in a samovar and it’s not the brand he likes best. But Otabek is here with him, smiling over his gigantic coffee cup and listening to everything he throws at him. He tells him stories about St. Petersburg, his grandpa, his cat Mischka, his latest leopard print jacket, his social media obsession. No matter what it is, Otabek sits across from him and asks questions when necessary, but most of the time he just listens as if he’s truly and utterly interested.

And Yuri feels that apart from winning gold he also won something else today. He just can’t put his finger on what it is exactly, but he knows.

* * *

 

The Russian Figure Skating Championship is a piece of cake. Yuri wins Gold without a second of doubt because he’s on a winning streak and feels one with the ice when skating. The other Russian skaters are no threat to him at all. His coaches are sure of this too, so no one is surprised when he wins the European Figure Skating Championship as well.

* * *

 

Next is the World Championship in Saitama, Japan. The Russian team arrives in Japan a day early. Yuri is jetlagged and tired but is looking forward to eating Japanese food again before the final practice sessions start. “You must try kitsune udon,” Yuri says to Mila when they’re arriving in the hotel. “Apart from katsudon it’s the best you can eat here.”

“Don’t stuff yourself with too many carbs,” Yakov reminds them with a strict look. “And God almighty, don’t eat any raw fish. We don’t want you shitting your intestines out before the contest.”

When the old man is turning around to check them in, Yuri rolls his eyes and Mila can’t help but start chuckling. “Wanna check out the hotel onsen later?” she whispers after calming down when Yakov shoots her another angry look.

“I wouldn’t be allowed to be in the same bathtub as you. And who wants to see your saggy tits anyway, baba?”

Mila gifts him with a clout for that and honestly, he feels he deserves it. Of course he would never admit this in public but he invites her to go shopping later and is glad when she graciously accepts his unspoken apology. He wants to see AEON Lake—according to Yelp, it’s the largest eco-friendly shopping center and, although he doesn’t really care about it being eco-friendly, the range of stores there make his fingers tingle in anticipation. It’s time to throw out some money. Sleep is for the weak anyway.

After a quick shower, they take the subway to the shopping center. Mila is dressed in tight black jeans and an emerald green duffle coat that makes her red hair stand out even more. More than one Japanese local tries to snap a picture of her without her noticing. It’s hilarious and annoying at the same time.

“Maybe they think you’re a film star,” he whispers and waves in the direction of two school girls in terrifyingly short skirts for the outside temperatures. They blush simultaneously and suddenly seem to be very occupied with their smartphones.

“I think it’s you they’re trying to photograph,” Mila says. “Or they’re mesmerized by our combined beauty. Who knows? I can never read Asian faces.”

Yuri thinks of Yuuri. His face is very expressive. The Japanese man can’t hide his feelings well, at least not when Victor is involved. And Otabek? Well, he’s more difficult to read but Yuri doesn’t know him very well—yet. He hasn’t seen him since a quick talk after the European Championships but he knows that they’ll meet again at the upcoming World Championships.

The shopping center is as gigantic as Yuri expected it to be. Mila squeaks with joy when wandering through the hallways and is amused by the exorbitantly friendly shop assistants. She drags Yuri into several clothing stores, dresses him up in tight shirts, even tighter leggings and decorates him with jewellery from the women’s section. He wants to be irritated but he enjoys himself too much. Mila is perfect company for a shopping spree!

“You look gorgeous in leather,” she smiles when she turns him around in front of the mirror. “Doesn’t he look gorgeous?” she then asks the pretty shop assistant who was obviously ordered to keep an eye on them. The girl smiles back helplessly.

“You know that the poor woman can’t speak Russian?” Yuri says. The leather jacket indeed looks nice and hugs his narrow shoulders in a way that makes them appear broader. He also likes the studded elements on the cuffs. They look very punk and very dangerous. He tries an equally dangerous face in the mirror and fails miserably.

“Well, she should learn it then,” Mila grins. “The jacket suits you perfectly. Maybe I’ll gift it to you.”

“Nah.”

“But you like it!”

“Well, I do look fucking great wearing it.” He turns around once more so that he can see the back of the jacket better. There’s a stylized tiger in red and orange embroidered on it. It’s high time he admitted he fell in love with the jacket at first sight. “If you really want to buy it for me I could force myself to wear it.”

“Idiot. I love you too,” Mila laughs.

* * *

 

After Yuri secures another gold medal—nobody seems too surprised about his fourth win in a row—Otabek, who won silver, and he end up in a hip tea house in a quiet part of the city. They slurp green tea out of gigantic ugly clay tea cups the owner made herself and speak about the contest, about their plans for next season, about everything actually. Yuri orders three different pieces of Japanese-style cheesecake just to stuff himself with as many carbs as possible to piss off Yakov. Of course he’s going to tell his coach in detail later what he’s wolfing down. Just to make sure, he also takes a picture of the food and puts it on his instagram, #teawithafriend. Perfect.

“Love the jacket,” Otabek says and takes a sip of his roasted green tea while watching him play with his phone. “I wonder who inspired you to wear leather.”

“Want to try the matcha cheesecake?” Yuri says before he blushes too hard and pushes his plate in Otabek’s direction.


	2. Amicitia / Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri gets to know Otabek better, chooses a new theme for the next season and has to compete against Yuuri and Victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to the lovely Strifenhart for beta reading! 
> 
> Find more notes on the music Yuri uses for his skating at the end of the chapter.

Back in St. Petersburg, Yuri finds out that Otabek has some very strange quirks. First of all, he doesn’t use social media at all and—because Yuri assumed that everyone does nowadays—he didn’t ask for his contact information during their last meeting. A quick search online shows that Otabek has an Instagram account but never posts anything. The few pictures that are online are old and obviously taken by his coach, and he never answers Yuri’s comments or private messages.

Second, he’s very old-fashioned in his communication methods. And as Yuri assumed he indeed has a very strange sense of humor.

When Yuri starts to accept the fact that he will most likely see his new friend again in the next season, there’s a sign of life. From a trip to Holland, or at least Yuri assumes so, Otabek sends his first hideous postcard, a white one with a single slice of cheese and the word ‘Holland” written in Comic Sans. It’s so clumsily designed that Yuri blinks twice when he first sees it. _Thought you’d like cheese. Otabek_ , it says on the back in neat, tiny handwriting written with a fountain pen.

Then, some time later, he seems to have visited Iceland. Yuri remembers that Otabek told him he has relatives there. Apparently, he went on a trip to the penis museum and from there he gifts Yuri with another card. It’s so disgustingly great that Yuri can’t stop chuckling whenever he looks at it. He puts it up in his room next to the first and whenever he feels down, it only takes a quick look to cheer him up again. That Otabek likes juvenile penis jokes is an interesting fact too.

The worst card, however, is from Switzerland. It’s a facsimile of an old billboard from the 40s. There’s a map of the country and a crate of red apples that look like straight out of a Disney movie. Right across the card there is a slogan in German, which, as Otabek explains on the back of the card, means “Switzerland exports apples.” It’s so entirely absurd that Yuri can’t think of any occasion one could write such a card—except to confuse someone entirely.

When Yuri takes a trip to Hasetsu with Yuuri and Victor for an ice show because they, well, want him to come and they also want to ‘visit the family,’ Yuri searches for an equally ugly postcard as revenge. It takes him forever to find the most grotesque one he can think of—a postcard of that abominable statue in front of the station. The picture on the front of the card is faded and it’s apparent that it was taken several years, if not decades ago. But it captures perfectly the exact sentiment Yuri felt for the statue when he first laid eyes on it. _Thought you’d like ugly postcards_ , he writes on the back in his neatest handwriting. He sends it to Otabek’s home rink address and hopes it reaches its destination.

When he gets home from Japan, a postcard stuffed into a dark green envelope with Otabek’s home address greets him. It shows a badly cropped tiger in front of a pixelated cherry tree in full bloom that says _Yes I like_ in capital letters. The maker’s Photoshop skills are obviously below zero. On the back there is Otabek’s email address and one single sentence. _But I prefer letters_. Yuri feels as if he has just unlocked the next level of a very difficult Playstation Game.

Later, after practice, he takes a trip to the best stationary shop in St. Petersburg he can find on Yelp. He buys the most expensive pieces of ivory paper and matching envelopes and even invests in a proper ballpoint pen. Otabek Altin wants letters? Otabek Altin will get the best fucking letters. 

He finds out quickly that Otabek, in vast contrast to when he speaks, is very eloquent when he writes. In fact, he learns the word eloquent from one of these letters.

* * *

 

Yakov and Lilia sit across him, both of them are each holding a piroshkok he’s just made for them from scratch. He wants them to be as open to his idea as possible but he’s not sure they’ll be too happy about it. “Eat them while they are still hot and good,” he says and tries an encouraging smile and shoves the plate in the direction of his coaches.

Lilia takes a very cautious first bite. Yuri knows she worries about her figure a lot and he finds it incredibly endearing that she willingly nibbles on even one of his piroshkies. He decides that he’ll try to be extra friendly today no matter what she says to his idea. “Mmmmh.” Her face lightens up when she starts chewing. “These are pretty good, Yuratschka. You’ve definitely improved since your first attempt.”

“Thanks?” Yuri says and tries to keep his waking rage in check. He’s not quite sure if it was an insult or praise. “Yakov, you too! I made them especially for you!”

Finally, all three of them dig in. The sound of munching fills the dining room and the scent of the piroshki is to die for. Grandpa told him some tricks about kneading the dough and voila, they turned out almost as good as his. Yuri is very proud of himself.

“Cards on table, boy,” Yakov says after some more chewing. “What is it you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“You almost never make food for us. There’s always a reason. So what’s the reason for this feast?” He points at the plate where there are still several buns left. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, they’re extraordinary. My babushka would have liked them too.”

Yuri stares at the wooden table. Suddenly, the grain looks very interesting.

“Well?”

“Iwantmythemethisyeartobefriendship,” he mumbles.

“What? Speak louder, I can’t hear you.”

“That’s because you’re old as fuck.”

“Yuri!”

He draws in a breath of air before he tries again. “I want my theme this year to be friendship!” Now it’s the time for a classic Yuri Plisetsky glare in their direction, so he puts everything he has in it and balls his fists under the table where they can’t see them. If they make fun of him he’ll lose it for sure, no matter that he promised himself to be nice. Bribery works better than tantrums, he knows that. But he can’t stand being mocked, so—

Whew. It seems to work. Yakov sighs defeatedly and looks away first. Staring contest won, Yuri versus Yakov 1:0. “You really want this?”

Yuri nods quickly.

“It’s quite similar to last season’s theme.”

“I know.” He’s very aware of this fact.

Yakov turns to his ex-wife. “What do you think, Lilia dear?”

The prima ballerina takes a moment to answer. Yuri touches a soft spot in her childless heart, he knows it. She would never tell him though, she’s at least as proud as he is, which she has proved in countless fights over the last year. “We can work with that. If you really want it.”

“Yes. Thanks!” Now he sees his broad grin reflected in their faces and suddenly the room feels a tiny bit warmer.

“We might have to change friendship to something more posh, though. Maybe something from another language, possibly Ancient Greek or Latin. We’ll come up with something. Oh, I already have some ideas about a choreography and there’s a piece of music that I think you might like!” Lilia says.

_That_ you _might like_ , Yuri thinks, but honestly, he doesn’t really care. He’s got his theme.

* * *

 

The new theme and getting Lilia’s approval means a lot of ballet practice after the summer break, and Yakov also pushes up the difficulty of his programs. More jumps, more quads. Yuri likes that. He likes to show off what he’s able to do with his formidable body. It’s also fun to shove his youth in Victor’s face who practices in St. Petersburg again with the katsudon.

“Look,” he says and bends his leg above his head while skating past these two, a move Victor wouldn’t be able to mimic even if he stops practicing his new program and starts stretching all day.

Victor doesn’t say anything but answers with a jump-spin combination Yuri is years too young to achieve. He grins. _Touché, old man, touché_.

“It’s good to have your rivals close. This fires up the competition,” Mila, who filmed everything with her smartphone, says and this calms him down immediately because he knows his rink mate is right.

* * *

 

Almaty, 30th of September

_Dear Yuri,_

_I hope you are well and fine in St. Petersburg, a city I would love to visit again very soon. The last time I was there was during the training camp I which can recollect so vividly. Unfortunately, I was too young to appreciate the possibility of sightseeing then, but I believe that I am going to find the time to do so in the near future._

_Currently, I am practicing my free program. This year I started working more on my flexibility and am continuing with weight training to increase my strength. Have I already told you that my theme this year is_ Force _? I think this suits my personal strengths best and I am looking forward to showing you the polished version of my program during the next Grand Prix._

_It is quite hot in Almaty at the moment so I cherish every memory of winter in my heart to tide me over until cooler months. Spending time at my family’s dacha is a welcomed change to the smog and heat in the city. On the weekends we all go there and relax while my father cooks on the barbecue. By the way, they would like to get to know you in the future because I, quote, “can’t stop talking about this Yuri character,” unquote. They are very likeable and I think you would get along quite well with my little sister._

_I’m going to finish my letter now because it is time for practice. Today, I will do some fine tuning on my free program. I am looking forward to reading your reply and will wait patiently every day for your letter. I would love to hear more stories about Victor and Yuuri. Are they still as annoying as ever?_

_Your friend_

_Otabek_

Yuri finishes the letter and stares at the neat handwriting that looks as if it was printed in a very old-fashioned font. These letters never get old. But how on earth is he suppose to answer these works of art at the same level? He’s quite aware of the fact that his vocabulary consists of a maximum of a thousand words, half of them being fuck and the other half shit. Every time Otabek sends him such a wordy letter he completely freaks out—and then gets his new Thesaurus app to work to come up with better phrases.

Fuck it. He’ll manage to do that. And didn’t Otabek just call him friend again? He can’t let down his friend. 

* * *

 

Yuuri is a very patient teacher. “Let’s try again, Yurio,” he says. “Just do it like that, and then like this—“

Unfortunately Yuri isn’t a very patient student. “God, I hate this shit. Look at my fingers. And—is that an ink stain on my favourite shirt? Arrrgh!!!” He wants to dart the fucking brush against the wall. Seriously. He’s only here in Yuri and Victor’s apartment because Otabek told him he likes calligraphy in his latest letter. Yuri should have guessed so because his handwriting looks so neat. And now he has this idea in his head that he wants to gift Otabek with the word 'force' written in Japanese calligraphy for his birthday.

Luckily, Yuuri knows the basics from some lessons he took as a child and agreed to teach him. But it’s almost the 31st of October and he hasn’t mastered the art of blotching ink on overly expensive paper one bit. “Can’t you write his fucking name for me?” Yuri whines.

“It won’t be the same, Yuratschka,” Victor comments from the couch where he’s lying with Makkachin and reading wedding magazines.

“Shut up, for fuck’s sake,” Yuri growls. “Why are you even here? Don’t you have a quadruple toe loop to practice or something?”

“Oh, I want to watch my beautiful fiancé teach my—“

Yuri flings one of the calligraphy books placed on the table in Victor’s general direction. He misses. The book lands with a thud and Makkachin starts barking.

“Once more,” Yuuri says patiently. 

* * *

 

On the 4th of November the landline in Yuri’s apartment rings. He’s just come back from Skate America where he won Gold again and still feels a bit jetlagged. “I’ll answer it, Grandpa,” he shouts and jumps to the entrance room of the flat where all his shoes and jackets and scarves and gloves are. Nobody calls on the landline anymore, except for his aunt Nadeschda from Moscow, who doesn't own a mobile phone. He hasn’t spoken to her in ages and she’ll for sure want to congratulate him on his win in America. First he can’t find the phone because it’s buried under his current favourite leopard print scarf.

“Yes?” he says when he picks up.

“It’s me.” Otabek’s voice sounds darker over the phone. Yuri hasn’t heard it in forever so it takes him two or three seconds to recognize him. “Your parcel arrived. That’s why I’m calling.”

Yuri’s face suddenly feels very hot. “Oh,” he says and then he doesn’t say anything at all. The clock above the main entrance ticks very loudly and he suddenly has the urge to hang up, run to his room and bury his face in his cat’s fur.

After some time Otabek clears his throat. “Thanks a lot. I appreciate the thought.”

Yuri is very glad that the other man can’t see his face, which by now must be coloured like over-cooked borscht. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?”

“Yes, quite.” Otabek makes a strange sound and it takes Yuri a while to figure out that he’s suppressing a chuckle. “But you made it, so I like it.”

* * *

 

Yuri has to admit that Yuuri’s performance is flawless. He dances on the ice as if he has wings and the dark blue costume, less sparkly and more flowing than last year, helps to keep up the illusion that he floats instead of skates to the ominous music of his free program.

If he really tries and is extremely critical he could find flaws in the older man’s presentation. Yuuri is not as young and flexible as he is and, of course, Yuri is able to raise his legs higher. Maybe he even looks more graceful on the ice because he simply has a child’s body instead of a grown-up’s.

But he has to be honest. He hears the thrilled, ecstatic cheers from the audience that were his last year and he knows that his Free Program, as good as it was, wasn’t enough. It was perfect for winning the Cup of China where he put Phichit and Guang-Hong to second and third place, but at the Grand Prix Final there’s Yuuri, and Yuuri is one of a kind. Yuri trained and lived with him for a year and knows what the Japanese man can do. He knows about his weird ability to hear music without even listening to a track, he’s witnessed the older man’s superhuman stamina. And he observed his perfect program on livestream at Skate Canada where he won gold and put Victor in second place. That’s why he knows with a certainty as clear as glass that he’s lost.

With these thoughts, Yuri’s hope to continue his winning streak shatters. He thought for sure that his program on friendship would once more secure him another gold medal. But Yuuri will win. Second will be Victor who, as some suspect, was underachieving on purpose just to see his beloved fiancé win. All of this pushes Yuri back to third place. The prospect of bronze has never looked duller.

He stands next to his coaches and his best friend when he gets defeated, watching Yuuri first smile a confused smile and then tearing up. The Japanese man also knows without a score from the judges that he just won the Grand Prix. And that’s not all, he achieved a masterful comeback after his defeat from last year when Yuri himself won gold.

When his rival’s score is finally announced Yuri’s fingers grip Otabek’s, who must feel immense pain but blessedly doesn’t comment on anything. He’s just there with Yuri and let him squeeze his hand to mush while silently suffering with him. “I’ll get gold again next year for sure,” Yuri hisses through clenched teeth. No chance of beating Yuuri once more though, his rival announced that he would retire if winning gold this season.

“You did it once. You can do it again,” Otabek says. He’s in fourth place and must feel even more devastated than Yuri. He feels like an ass but he doesn’t really want to know about that right now. “You are the Ice Tiger of Russia. Your performance and your theme were great. A real piece of art.”

Otabek’s words do not only remind him of something Lilia said once but also make Yuri’s stomach flutter. It happens more often than not recently, like when Otabek writes a nice comment about Yuri’s skating or sends him another stupid card—or when he says exactly the things Yuri wants to hear. Yuri turns away from those sincere, dark eyes so that the other man can’t see the tears of anger in his eyes. “I’ll win at Worlds then.”

“Sure you will.”

“I will.” He tries to sound as confident as possible but, even so, he can't even convince himself.

* * *

 

Yuri startles up in the middle of the night sweaty and with a racing heart. A quick view on his phone reveals that it’s 3.46am.

“Fuck.”

He can’t remember what he’s just dreamed; there are only fragments of thoughts left. But there’s a feeling of emptiness and dread in his chest that almost makes him whimper. He sits up in his bed, breathing heavily and his cat Mischka, who sleeps next to his head on a separate pillow, wakes up too, meows and moves closer to Yuri. She seems to feel that he’s upset and tenderly rubs her head against his chest. With trembling fingers he strokes her long fur and whispers soothing words more to calm himself down than the cat. 

* * *

 

“You look horrible,” Georgi comments when they both make their way to the rink.

“Thanks a lot, bro,” Yuri answers sarcastically. “I know that I look like shit. Just like you when Anya left you.”

Although he feels chewed and vomited back up, he somehow manages to place second in Nationals. Georgi is first and very proud of himself. Yuri tries not to overthink it but it’s hard not to be mad all the time and hit his rinkmate in the face when he sees him grinning and boasting.

“You can’t always win Gold,” Yakov says.

“But I should,” Yuri answers through gritted teeth.

That his coach doesn’t deny this is acknowledgement enough. 

* * *

 

He truly starts to detest his program when he gets beaten by Georgi at Nationals and by Otabek at World’s in Shanghai by only a few points. He detests that the commentators and journalists speculate so much on why the unsocial Russian Punk chose such a sappy theme as Friendship because he absolutely refuses to explain the background to them. What would he even say?

He also despises that the majority of his fanclub ships him with JJ because, for some reason, they can see a blooming love affair in his theme. JJ, the idiot, scores third place in Shanghai and seems to have decided to become Yuri’s friend, which fires up the rumors even more. After the award ceremony the Canadian follows him around like a dog and wants to engage in fucking smalltalk.

“I know what it’s like when you can’t deliver what everybody expects from you,” he says.

Yuri ends all rumors floating around with a well-placed roundhouse kick into JJ’s back and leaves the rink fuming. He doesn’t need a new friend, especially not a halfwit like JJ. He has Otabek, Otabek who waits for him on a rented black Harley with his leather jacket and takes him out for tea. Otabek, who won but doesn’t rub it in Yuri’s face at all.

“I’m glad you are like this,” Yuri says. The teahouse Otabek chose for their meeting is furnished with bamboo stools, elegant white tables and lampshades made out of braided bamboo. There are carefully selected potted palm trees in the corners and tasteful paintings of local artists on the walls. The waitresses are even tinier than Yuri, very cute and extremely polite. The prices are decent. Yuri enjoys his Milky Oolong with a side of colourful and very tasty macarons and a gigantic slice of juicy tarte tartin—the owner is French and the tea house specializes in finest confectionary.

“Like what?” Otabek asks, snatching one of the macarons from Yuri’s plate. Instead of stabbing him with his little fork Yuri decides to ignore it.

“You’re you. You’re nice. You don’t go to the banquet but are here with me, in a fucking tea house.”

“It’s more fun and I knew you’d like it.” Otabek chews thoughtfully. “But don’t call me nice. That’s a word with no meaning.”

“Meaning, shmeaning. Bah.” Sometimes it’s hard to understand the other man, Yuri thinks. He just wanted to be, well, nice for once. “What should I call you instead?”

“I don’t need a label. Just explain what you mean and maybe we’ll come up with a word to describe my awesomeness.” A smirking grin follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How can Yuri peak at 15 and then not win everything in the following season, you might ask yourself. Well, one theme of this story is dealing with the fact that you aren’t as good as you thought you were. Another is growing up—and puberty with all its nasty side effects is going to hit Yuri hard, I promise.
> 
> *** 
> 
> The teahouse Otabek and Yuri are visiting is Song Fang Tea House. http://www.songfangtea.com/teahouse_en.php
> 
> ***
> 
> A dacha is kind of a summer house/second home a lot of Russian people and people from the former Eastern block own. I headcanon Otabek as quite wealthy and so I’m sure his family has a very nice dacha!
> 
> ***
> 
> Yuri’s two pieces for “Friendship” (both picked by Lilia and deliberately similar to the music used for Agape):
> 
> Short Program: Hungarian Dance (Brahms)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onaVEahKyBo
> 
> Free Program: Violin Concerto in A Minor RV356 (Vivaldi)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPba-i26YNA


	3. Pugnacitas / Will to fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his last season didn’t work out, Yuri guri tries his hand at a theme his coaches believe will lead him to a win. However, this season he feels that something inside him is changing for the worse—not even getting to know Otabek better can change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it took me so long to post a new chapter. I started a new project and completely forgot about updating but I plan to put the last three parts online in the next few days. 
> 
> Prepare for a LONG part. More notes at the end of the chapter.

After the summer break Yakov, Lilia and Yuri meet again to speak about this season’s theme. Well, his coaches seem to have made up their minds about everything while he was doing commercials for Channel One and photoshoots with the Russian Vogue. 

“Your theme is going to be ‘Fight’. Don’t give me that look, Yuratschka. You need to push harder if you want to stay Russia’s top figure skater. Your last season, if I’m allowed to be honest, was nothing more than a defeat, so you must fight back hard this season!” 

Yuri silently agrees with Yakov at first and accepts his fate. When Lilia asks him what kind of music he has in mind for his short program things start escalating quickly from there. He wants to skate to an aggressive piece by a Czech punk band he discovered via Soundcloud. However, his coaches are horrified when he plays it for them. “You worked on your prima ballerina image for quite some time now. Do you really want to destroy it with _this_?” Lilia’s brows are knit together and the tone in her voice says everything she thinks about his music choice. She utterly hates each and every note. 

“So what do you want for me then? Classical shit again, yes?” Yuri snaps.

She flinches at his strong words but doesn’t say anything because she knows it’s useless. Yuri has a potty mouth and no matter how hard his coaches try to drive it out of him, profanity will most likely stay part of his personality for quite some time. “I wouldn’t word it like that, but yes. I thought of Beethoven, maybe. His faster pieces go well with your theme and I know you like the music.” 

In fact, Yuri doesn’t like Beethoven’s music at all. He likes only one piece and that’s the one Otabek used for his free skate the year he met him. Yuri listened to it nonstop for some time before he finally had enough of it. But he doesn’t have the energy to argue today—he constantly feels drained since strange dreams started waking him up in the middle of the night, most of them he can’t remember, and even stranger are the feelings he cannot seem to grasp. 

He’s then back to ballet with Lilia, back to all the basics, back in beginner’s class with all her other students. They both feel it’s a punishment but none of them would say it out loud. Instead Lilia’s voice cuts through the air of the studio with sharp commands while Yuri practices pliés, elevés, tendus and coupés, steps he can practically do in his sleep.

“Lift your chin. Higher. Higher. Be a graceful swan, Yuri Plisetsky.” Lilia claps her hands and all the six-year olds in their tutus and ballet buns chuckle. “I said higher!”

Yuri trains everyday on and off ice for his new program until he feels he has a neck as elongated as a giraffe and Lilia finally puts him in advanced class again. At least her training schedule and Yakov’s new programs secure him a silver medal in the Rostelecom Cup and gold in France. 

***

Otabek is insanely distrustful of everything social media. “I don’t like the idea of putting myself out there,” he says.

It’s early December and he’s visiting St. Petersburg for the very first time as a tourist. They had to appoint their meeting via landline. Yuri detests this form of communication as much as he detests seeing Victor and Yuuri snog on the rink but Otabek is old-fashioned. At least he agreed on something faster than letters and, Yuri thinks, hearing Otabek’s voice is better than nothing at all.

It’s freezing cold outside but still Yuri wants to show him everything that’s there to see because he remembers that he wanted to go sightseeing. And so he has dragged Otabek around the city for hours now. After morning practice where Yuri showed his friend parts of his short program, they went ice-skating in Victory Park. Yuri showed some his tricks to a cheering audience and they both had to write dozens of autographs. They later ate some piroshky bought from a street vendor Yuri’s grandfather had recommended. And of course they passed by the Church of the Saviour on the Spilt Blood so that Otabek could buy an ugly postcard picturing a hideous icon for his family in Kazakhstan. Apparently all the Altins take part in the game.

The tiger print mittens Otabek gave him as a super late birthday gift keep Yuri’s fingers cosily warm but his face, especially his nose, feels frozen solid by now. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to visit the museum ship as a last destination when it’s already getting dark and there’s a wild winter storm crashing over the city. But Yuri would rather swallow his tongue than admit that staying home with his granddad would have been a better idea than sightseeing. Also, the museum ship is the best thing since sliced bread. And Otabek is only here for two days because their rigid training schedule doesn’t allow for more time off the ice. 

Yes, Yuri is tired as hell because sleep still doesn’t come easy to him and two out of three nights he lies awake until morning and asks himself why he can’t sleep. But Otabek’s here now and he wants to use their time together wisely. So he’ll show him everything that’s here to see or he’ll freeze to death trying.

“Co-come on. It’s ju-just one damn-mn selfie.” Yuri feels the words dragging in his mouth. His face is so fucking cold that he can’t even speak properly. He snuggles deeper into his fake fur coat and tries not to chatter audibly. 

Otabek sighs. A quick look, however, reveals that he doesn’t seem annoyed but rather amused. “You are a stubborn man, Yuri Plisetsky. Be glad I like you so much. And now give me your damn phone.”

“Why?”

“You are shaking so I’m afraid you might let it drop into the sea.” He eyes Yuri’s latest iPhone model warily and takes off his black leather gloves. “So how does this device work?”

“Unlock the home screen. Camera app. Front camera. Push the button. Easy as pie.”

“It might be easy for someone who owns a smartphone.”

Yuri snorts. “You must be the only person under fifty who still has a phone with buttons but no internet connection. How old are you?” He pulls out a part of his black knitted scarf and puts it over his face to warm up. “Fuck, it’s cold.”

“My mind is ancient. And you, my friend, look like a bank robber now.” Otabek has finally managed to unlock the home screen and clumsily holds the phone above him and Yuri. “Come closer. Closer. Don’t be shy or we won’t both be on the picture.”

“We’ll look like Victor and katsudon like that,” Yuri grumbles. Their instagram account is plastered with selfies, faces pushed together, loving expression on their faces. He thinks it is enough to see them everyday on the rink together, skating in perfect sync, being in love, sticking together like siamese twins conjoined at their interlaced fingers. _Blargh._

“Do you want to take a photo with me or not?”

Yuri nods. “Sure I do.”

“Then come here.”

Yuri tentatively steps closer until he’s standing right next to his friend and their hips are touching. Although he knows it’s impossible, he seems to feel the other’s body warmth through thick layers of fake fur, leather, knitwear and thermal underwear. “f you don't want people to know it's you, you should become a bank robber with me,” he suggests.

Otabek smiles a half-smile and pulls his own scarf over his mouth and nose. “Nice. I like that.”

“Can I post the pic later?”

“Just this one. And don’t you dare tag me.”

“Everyone knows you’re here with me anyway.” Yuri thinks about Yuuri’s delighted face, Mila’s teasing and Victor’s stupid proud dad look when he grumpily announced that Otabek was coming. Really everyone being so happy for him just gave him the creeps.

“Don’t pout. And now give me a fierce Russian Ice Tiger look.” Otabek’s voice sounds muffled. Yuri can’t see his mouth but he feels that the other man is smiling behind his scarf.

***

He posts the picture after Otabek left for Kazakhstan in the morning. It gets a predicted two million likes on Instagram even though it’s a bit blurry—Otabek only agreed to one single snapshot. Everyone and their grandmother seem to want to guess who the man next to Yuri might be. Those who know keep quiet because he threatened to murder them in their sleep if they told.

(He’s not sure if they behave because he also mentioned Otabek not being comfortable with the whole social media thing or because they are honestly afraid of his wrath. He likes the idea that there indeed was a glint of fear in Victor’s blue eyes when he confronted him.)

Not one of the fans gets it right without any hints from the insiders though. This delights Yuri to an extent he can’t even describe.  
***

Two days after Otabek’s visit, he gets an email invitation to use Signal while taking a break from his training. Yuri doesn’t know anybody who uses that messaging app, all his rink mates, family members and other acquaintances use _Whatsapp_. Curiously, and against better judgement, he installs the messaging app and stares at his screen.

Soon there’s a message. _Hi, Yuri_ , it says. The unknown person is still typing. Slowly. Crawlingly. It’s like watching his grandpa type. The person on the other end is clearly searching for letters on the keyboard. Yuri might be seventeen now but he hates hates HATES waiting and he is still impatient as fuck. Just before he contemplates flinging his phone against the wall in frustration a message pops up.

_I’m still not sure how this works._

Yuri just sends back a very confused emoji and a brusque _who’s there?_

Three hours later (or five minutes, who can tell exactly) there’s another message. _Here’s Otabek._

Yuri can’t help it. He starts grinning. _why r u texting? don’t u hate messaging apps and sm?_ His fingers are so fast he can even type without looking. Thinking about Otabek trying to find the right letters is hilarious. He snorts and gets a scolding look from Yakov who taps his watch and signals him that break time is over in five.

_Sado Maso?_

_social media_ , Yuri types and sends. _you dork_ , he adds a moment later. Then he’s afraid he’s overdone it so he sends three winking emojis after the last message.

It takes Otabek forever to answer and when he does it’s one single long ass message. _You like it. So I thought about giving it a try. Was this a good idea? A family member advised the messaging app to me. It’s safe, even Edward Snowden recommends it_.

“Good grief,” Yuri mumbles. _stop with the long texts asap_ , he types quickly. Yakov looks seriously pissed now. Time to get back onto the ice. _short messages. no long letters please._

 _I’m still learning_ , Otabek replies. _Give me some time. I’ll try my best._

***

Otabek is a fast learner. The only thing he can’t get right is the correct use of emojis.

The first set Yuri gets is so confusing that he asks Mila to help him decipher them because she’s the only one around. “What the fuck does he mean, can you tell me?”

“Honestly, I’ve no idea.”

Nothing but the alien, crying cat, and haircut emojis sitting right next to each other. Both Yuri and Mila stare at the screen trying to find any meaning behind the combination.

“What did you send before you got this?” Mila asks, getting into Sherlock-mode and clearly enjoying herself. She’s put her chin on Yuri’s head and hugs him from behind. 

“Selfie after morning practice.” That he was sweaty but still thought he looked gorgeous and had to share his awesomeness with his best friend is not important. “Get off me, you’re heavy.”

Mila sits down next to him. “Maybe he thinks your current hairstyle is out of this world?”

“I’m wearing a fucking man bun. That’s so outdated I can’t even—“

“Or he thinks you should cut your hair because you look like an alien.”

“Nah. He said he loves my hair.”

She grins. “’Loves’?”

“Likes! Likes!” Yuri corrects himself and hits his rink mate with his fist. “Christ, Mila!”

The older woman just laughs. “Or it’s not about you. Maybe he went to the hairdresser and the results are hilarious? Maybe they turned him into a baldy-head accidentally? Would be a shame though.”

In the end it turns out the solution is much simpler. I just hit some random buttons and they popped up, Otabek plainly admits when asked. After he’s put his phone away to chuckle for a few seconds, Yuri patiently explains to him how choosing emojis works.

_What, there are more?! Otabek texts back._

Yuri cries tears because he can’t stop laughing.

***

_Hey Otabek,_

__

__

Hope your training is going good. I’m sure you’ll manage to do the jump combination you want to do eventually. You just have to practice more. Don’t forget to do the exercises from the Youtube Video. They’re perfect for flexibility and soon you’ll be able to scratch your back with your foot (lol) Send me a pic when you do!

Yakov is a slave driver like ever (training six fucking days a week!!!) and don’t get me started on Lilia. She put me on a protein diet AGAIN. Staying off the carbs, eating lean meats, WHYGODWHY. Guess what? No piroshki until after the competition! Blargh. Everytime I walk past a bakery I get crazy cravings like a pregnant chick. 

Last Saturday Grandpa and I were at the Udelnaya flea market because he wanted to buy a spare mudguard for the Saporoshez. (I posted some pics on my Instagram, have you checked them out already?) It was fucking cold and windy and no mudguard anywhere in sight :( But I saw this book on calligraphy and thought of you. Have fun reading it, I guess.

_Yuri_

***

When the new season starts, Yuri meets his fellow competitors again.

Minami is now competing for Japan instead of Yuuri who retired after winning gold. The bubbly boy is no threat at the moment but very ambitious.

Phichit is still as good and as cheerful as ever. Although he loses to Yuri in France and only wins silver, he is determined to get gold at the Grand Prix before retiring and going back to Thailand to make his wish of an ice show come true. Yuri is glad Phichit hasn’t considered him to take part because he just knows a hamster hat will look incredibly shitty on his blond hair.

Mickey tries hard to impress Sara but there is a shift in his behaviour. Yuri catches him throwing looks into Emil’s direction who seems to be clueless what’s going on, and Yuri has no intention of clearing things up between those two idiots, especially not when Mickey beats him at Skate America.

Otabek worked on his flexibility and aced the Cup of China with a new personal best. Yuri’s tips on increasing his flexibility obviously made some sort of impact. He’s still strong when it comes to jumps and that’s very threatening somehow.

They have been texting non-stop for quite some time now. Well, it’s mostly Yuri texting and Otabek reading the messages because he’s still slow as fuck. But as promised he’s been a dutiful student. Sometimes he sends a fitting emoji or even a snapshot from Almaty. All his pictures are blurry and overall crap because he got himself an outdated phone, but Yuri doesn’t care at all because finally he can take part in Otabek’s online life.

And there’s JJ, of course.

He’s now married, his wife is six months pregnant and so he obviously feels more confident than ever. There are no signs of an anxiety attack during any of his programs. Yes, he hasn’t won gold at any competition so far, but he’s good. He’s perfect.

Yuri isn’t. He skates well and better than most, his gold medal from Trophée de France proves that. As sworn to himself, he trained his butt off. He added more quads to his short program and chose an even more difficult piece than last year for his free program because he wants to show what he’s able to do. Yakov is eager to affirm that he’ll make it this year. He should be proud of himself and feel self-confident.

And yet he still feels incredibly tensed up before every competition this season. He still doesn’t sleep very well but now his body has found a new way to torment him. Every muscle in his body is knotted up when he enters the rink, no matter if during practice sessions with his rinkmates or at the skating venues. It’s as if his body has decided that it wants to reject everything even vaguely skating-related.

Plus, when the first snow falls in St. Petersburg his legs start hurting all the time, especially at night. Because he can’t sleep anyway he thinks even more. Sometimes, when lying in his bed awake for hours and unable to fall asleep, he goes through his routines in his head over and over and over again, asking himself why he’s always so tense. When he gets up in the morning after one or two hours of real sleep he could beat himself up for having so much doubt in his own abilities. Didn’t he already win a fucking gold medal and silver this season? Isn’t that proof enough that he’s doing well again?

Honestly, he doesn’t know why his brain goes haywire every night. He’s felt confident his whole life but since his winning streak ended he doesn’t feel like himself, he feels like Yuuri Fucking Katsuki who once lost everything because he was a nervous wreck.

And then there’s the fact he’s enraged and tense and sad and hopeless _all the fucking time_. And he has no idea why.

“It’s puberty,” Mila says. “It’ll pass.”

“Shut up, baba,” Yuri barks and storms out of the changing rooms, tears stinging in his eyes.

He doesn’t want to hear about it. Puberty means pimples, chest hair, moustaches, voice breaking and of course, a changing, growing body—he doesn’t even want to think about that lest he start the whole process accidentally.

It’s impossible to tell anybody though. It seems so out of character not to be confident that he rather swallows these strange feelings and hide them somewhere dark. He plays the snarky teenage brat to well to be able to admit that he’s not okay. But he knows.

Something’s wrong. Something’s changing.

He wins gold at the Grand Prix Final, yes, he tries to be confident at interviews, yes, but he secretly dreads the upcoming Worlds. Sometimes he wakes up at night dreaming of falling, breaking his ankle in front of the audience and having to finish skating forever while his rivals are watching. Other nights the nightmares change. He tries to wriggle into his skating suit but it doesn’t fit any more so he has to skate naked. The audience is in tears. In his dream they always chuckle like mean teenage girls. It gets worse and worse when he goes online and reads the forums where the skating nerds speculate that he won’t win gold this year either.

“That’s enough. Give me your phone. Now,” Lilia orders one day after he loses his temper during a break and rants for ten minutes over a stupid post at goldenskate.com. “Those sites don’t do you any good—no, stop it immediately, Yuri Plisetsky. You should know by now that resistance is futile.”

***

_O,_

__

__

_The old hag snatched my phone. I’m banned from social media until Worlds. Speak to you then. Need some time off._

_Y_

***

Yuri meets Otabek again in Boston on the second day of the Worlds. He just finishes the warm-up session before the free program competition starts and as he goes to skate off the ice there is Otabek, looking confused and hurt. Yuri managed to avoid him yesterday when they skated their short programs but now he can’t escape. Immediately he regrets not reacting to Otabek’s efforts to get in touch. Apart from several calls his granddad took for him there are four unopened letters in his apartment, all labeled in Otabek’s perfect handwriting. Yuri stuffed them under the kitchen sink just to get them out of sight, unable to open and read them. If he’d done that he’d have had to write back and explain everything—but he couldn’t. He also realized that after ignoring somebody for so long, it gets too embarrassing to be reminded of their existence. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles and steps off the ice. He wouldn’t be surprised if the other man doesn’t want to talk to him anymore because he literally _ghosted_ him. 

But Otabek doesn’t seem to hate Yuri. He follows him into the changing rooms silently and sits down on one of the benches there while Yuri changes into comfy clothes and brushes his hair just to keep his nervous hands occupied. “I’m not mad,” he finally explains when getting shot a very cautious and questioning look. “I’m just a bit sad that you didn’t explain what happened. And that you excluded me from your life. You did exclude me from your life, didn’t you?”

Yuri wants to explain everything to his friend then. But he doesn’t know where to start. He tried to write down an explanation of his behaviour in the last weeks leading up to Worlds but it always ended up like this:

 _Sorry, I feel shitty all the time and I can’t sleep at night and I lost all my confidence and I think I’m not okay. And this was why I couldn’t answer your calls. Or your perfectly worded letters. Oh, have I already mentioned that I can’t sleep at night? And what about the fucking nightmares? They got worse after the last Grand Prix. And my body hurts ALL THE TIME. I feel so shitty day in and day out. Whinewhinewhine._

Nope. He’s not going to tell Otabek any of this. 

“I’m sorry,” he says instead and tries to put as much honesty into his voice as possible. He doesn’t apologize very often, fuck, he can’t remember apologizing at all in the last few years. But he’s missed Otabek so much. How did he survive the past few months without him? In retrospect he can’t explain it at all.

Otabek smiles a half smile. “It’s okay. But please, don’t do that to me again. I was seriously considering taking a flight to St. Petersburg because I thought you were dead.”

Now Yuri picks up Otabek’s smile. It’s too contagious to resist. “How could I be dead?”

“Your Instagram account hasn't updated at it's usual rate of once per second since the Grand Prix. I was seriously worried.”

“Idiot.” Yuri sits down next to his best friend and stares down at his hands. “Sorry for everything,” he says a third time, just to make sure that the message gets across. “I won’t do that again,” he adds quietly. “I got my phone back yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you text me immediately? No, you don’t have to tell me.” Otabek sighs. “I’m just glad I have you back.”

They both sit next to each other in silence. Yuri can’t help but smile. It definitely feels better like this, being friends and talking and shit.

Otabek sighs once more and turns to him. “Although I’d really like to know what’s wrong. It’s not like you to just vanish—”

“I don’t fucking know, okay?!” Yuri barks before his brain clicks in and he realizes what he’s just done. He can’t believe he shouted at his friend. “Fuck. God. I’m so sorry,” he mumbles immediately and means it, his hands shaking a bit. “I didn’t mean to shout, I—I shout all the time, yes, but it’s getting worse and worse and I—”

Otabek puts his hand on Yuri’s head. His touch is light and not patronizing at all, and it has meaning because normally they don’t touch casually. That’s something Guang-Hong and Leo do but not him and Otabek. “Calm down.” A moment passes where Otabek seems to ask silently if it is okay to touch him and Yuri leans into his hand almost imperceptibly as an answer. Then the other man starts patting Yuri’s hair very gently. Yuri has observed the same gesture with pets Otabek is fond of, such as his grumpy cat Mischka he got to know last year in St. Petersburg. “I shouldn’t have probed. That was stupid. I’m sorry.”

Yuri exhales breath he didn’t now he was holding in.

Otabek doesn’t seem to be mad, just very worried, and picks his words carefully. “Are you afraid of losing again?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I have no fucking clue.” Yuri’s voice breaks. He has tried to tell Otabek about the strange feeling in his body and about all of his sleepless nights but he doesn’t even know himself what’s wrong. How could he explain it to someone else then? Not even his Grandpa knows about this shit.

“You can do this. You beat Victor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki. Heck, you even beat me a few times and we both know I’m pretty good. You are Russia’s hope. And as much as I want you to lose, because I need to win, I know you can do this.” Otabek almost never says so many words in one sentence. Yuri knows how much confidence this must have cost and now it’s his turn to be confident. However, he just can’t ask for the simple hug he wants, that’s too embarrassing.

But Otabek once more seems to feel what he needs most. “Come here,” he says and drags Yuri into a firm, very manly embrace. After a second of stiffening Yuri gives in and simply puts his head on Otabek’s shoulders. Staying in this position he feels as if he’s recharging energy.

***

In the end it isn’t enough though. Otabek wins the competition by skating a fabulous free program and scores a new personal best. JJ finishes second and Yuri wins Bronze—again. Or is he losing Gold once more? 

“Well, you did your best,” Yakov says. 

When Yuri looks at him he sees that his coach is incredibly disappointed, which is unnecessarily cruel because he knows perfectly well that he fucked up.

***

Yuri doesn’t go to the banquet this year. He stays in his hotel room with a very happy Otabek and they watch _Blades of Glory_ on Yuri’s MacBook. The stupid movie makes Yuri squirt juice out of his nose because he can’t stop giggling. That he mixed a dash of minibar vodka with his beverage and took some paracetamol with it also helps and turns his brain into a very happy pile of goo. His belly hurts after the movie night with his rival, who is also his best friend. 

After the credits roll they finally start talking for real. 

“So tell me, why didn’t you tell me before? Why didn’t you share your sorrows with me?” Otabek pours himself another shot of vodka with a serious expression on his face and tosses the drink back with soldier-like discipline. 

“Stop speaking like that,” Yuri snorts, takes a sip and grimaces because, even when mixed with sweet juice, alcohol just tastes horrible. “You sound like a fucking dictionary.” Being drunk makes Otabek even more eloquent instead of brain dead, like him. Interesting. “I thought I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Shit, you’re my friend, not my therapist.”

“Don’t be stupid. As you’ve said I’m your friend. I want to know about everything. Not only about the positive aspects of your life, but everything.”

So Yuri spills the beans and Otabek listens. The vodka makes it easier to be honest with each other. There might be a bit of crying from Yuri’s side but by this point he’s had too many shots to say if that’s true or not. 

In the end they are both completely pissed and crash fully clothed in Yuri’s king size bed, Otabek’s fingers in Yuri’s hair, massaging his scalp, playing with his long strands. “It’s so soft, just like kitten fur,” he whispers with an audible slur. Yuri decides that he’s adorable when he’s a drunk. “I want to bury my face in it. Can I?”

Yuri only notices that through a veil, half-asleep. “Uh-huh,” he murmurs and when he feels Otabek’s breath in his hair and feels him rubbing his face against his head he isn’t completely sure he isn’t imagining things. Otabek is warm and strong and this gives him a fuzzy, pleasant feeling somewhere south his navel.

For the first time in forever, he falls into a deep and dreamless slumber.

***

When he wakes up around ten he, for a second, doesn’t exactly know where he is and rolls around in bed like a beached whale. His head hurts with seventh circle of hell intensity. At least he doesn’t seem to have pole-danced half-naked like a certain Swiss pervert, he thinks, and he’s wearing boxers and a black shirt. Where’s Otabek? Well, Otabek seems to be gone, leaving only a trace of his musky scent behind. But there’s something else.

Touching the pillow next to him blindly, he feels the edges of another postcard. It shows three cross-eyed koi fish in a dark and muddied pool. When he turns it over he discovers a hastily scribbled message. _Had to catch my flight. Had fun. Don’t vanish ever again. Call me whenever you want. I’m willing to use FaceTime for you. O._

“What a weirdo,” Yuri mumbles and still, he can’t stop himself from smiling. Once more he buries his face in the pillow and inhales deeply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems to be the case with (Russian) figure skaters that they peak early (just like Yuri) and then start getting worse results when puberty hits. Growing changes the way a person skates. Yuri would surely suffer and feel very bad about it, especially when keeping in mind that he said “I only have a short window before my body changes” in episode 4. I’m quite sure that this was a hint at puberty.
> 
> ***
> 
> This is the song Yuri plays to Lilia and Yakov (one of his Czech followers recommended it). His music taste is fairly special ;)
> 
> Damoklův meč (Gattaca)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d86ttCR5gZY  
> (I tried to Google translate the song and it has very interesting lyrics as far as I can tell. If one of you speak Czech I would love to know the exact translation!)
> 
> That’s the music Yuri is forced to use instead.
> 
> Short program: Für Elise (Ludwig van Beethoven)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_UOuSklNL4
> 
> Free Program: Danse Macabre (Camille Saint-Saëns)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM
> 
> Yuri likes Danse Macabre because of the trippy tune but utterly detests Für Elise because he thinks it’s boring as hell. If it had to be Beethoven at all costs he would have preferred something like Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (especially the abridged version from the movie A Clockwork Orange) but after Lilia’s reaction he didn’t dare to ask.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGWYLnp4IaQ&index=6&list=PL28CE5427660B93F6 
> 
> ***
> 
> Things are set in motion! Huzzah!


	4. Redemptionem / Redemption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri finally hits puberty and hates every bit of it, especially when his changing body keeps him from performing the way he wants to. It’s good that a certain friend is here to help him through these tough times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to upload all remaining parts at once. This part is even longer than the last one, yikes! As always, see the end of the chapter for more notes and music choices. 
> 
> ***
> 
> Thanks and kudos to Strifenhart for being the best beta!

Yuri knows now what the problem during the last season was. His body was preparing for a very late growth spurt that hits immediately after Worlds, and with it comes horrible growing pains that make the last weeks of sleeplessness seem almost ridiculously relaxing. On top of that, he suffers through voice breaks almost constantly which, by the end, lowers his already dark voice an octave down. At least when it doesn’t make him squeal like a scared little pig. 

He FaceTimes Otabek at midnight somewhen in May because there’s no way in hell he’ll fall asleep with his legs throbbing and hammering and hurting so much. He needs distraction—and who would be better to distract him than his best friend? Plus, he’s promised to be more open with him and Otabek has agreed to listen.

“God damn, Yuri,” the other man grumbles when he finally answers the call. His face looks distorted on the little screen. “It’s… three o’clock in the morning. I need my beauty sleep or the neighbours will be even more afraid of me when they see the bags under my eyes tomorrow.”

Uh-oh. Yuri forgot that Kazakhstan was in another timezone—again. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Really.”

“Don’t mention it. What’s wrong?” Clumsily Otabek is searching for the light switch. When he finally finds it his room is illuminated and Yuri can clearly see that he isn’t wearing a shirt when he sleeps. Somehow his pain is gone for a second–but hits again with the sheer force of a 200-kilo dumbbell on his shins.

“It hurts so much,” his voice breaks on 'hurts' and he doesn't even care. You can’t just tell Yuri Plisetsky that he can call whenever he wants and not deliver. The drugstore pills he took in the evening don’t show any effect at all. “How long will it take to stop?”

“I’m afraid I’m the wrong person to ask about that. I’m quite short, don’t forget that. And honestly, I can’t even recall growing at all.” Otabek sits in his bed cross-legged now and yawns. He seems to have remembered his promise about late-night calls from St. Petersburg. “But my cousin had these pains. As far as I understood, your bones are stretching and of course this hurts like hell. But it won’t take forever, after two weeks or so you should feel fine. And you will be taller and stronger after that.” Once more he yawns and shows all his thirty-two perfect teeth doing so. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind you growing a bit.”

Yuri sticks his tongue out. “You are an idiot.”

Otabek grins. “But I’m your idiot. Go back to bed, Yuri. Try to sleep and text me in the morning, okay?”

“Thanks.”

“Everything for my lovely Yura.”

Yuri makes fake gagging noises and hangs up.

***

Two weeks is far too optimistic—Yuri’s body has different plans. He is in excruciating pain for an entire month and starts questioning if he’s actually experiencing growing pains. Maybe he’s just suffering from stage four bone cancer as a quick Google search suggests.

After Yakov finally acknowledges that there is a problem he can’t fix with shouting at him, he’s allowed to visit the team medic. The doctor, however, scatters all thoughts of anything cancer-y. “You’ve always been a late bloomer, that’s all. Try not to overdo your training in the next weeks and you should be fine.”

Late bloomer. Yuri wants to hit the fat man directly in the smiling face but takes the stronger painkillers he gets prescribed instead. And of course he overdoes his training even though it’s summer. He can’t get out of shape. Not if he wants to win something, _anything_ , remotely golden next season.

When the nightly pain attacks finally stop Yuri dares to measure his new height with Mila’s help. It turns out that he’s taller than Otabek, taller than Victor even. This might have been a fact he would have been happy about when he was fourteen but he hates everything about it now. Yes, his shoulders are a bit broader and his legs longer, but his feet grew five (FIVE!!!) sizes. This means new shoes, new jeans, new shirts, new everything! As much as he loves going shopping he detests that his favourite clothes don’t fit any more. It especially hurts that his favourite Japanese leather jacket is too narrow around the shoulders. On top of that, he can’t easily choose from the women’s department any longer. This means less variety and less satisfaction, which, in further consequence, means trouble. During the first weeks he walks around with a constant sour face until Victor invites him on a shopping spree. 

“Why would I go with you?” Yuri says with eyes like slits. He’s especially irritable today because he tried to wriggle himself into one of his favourite leopard print shirts he owned and loved from sixteen on and it fucking tore, leaving only a cleaning rag behind. He even shed a silent tear or two in mourning. 

“I’ll pay for everything you want with my Platinum American Express,” Victor smiles and happily waves said card. 

They end up buying more items than either of them can carry. It’s good the other man booked a personal butler for the day, who silently groans under the weight of all the Chanel, Dior, Diesel and Boss shopping bags, and Yuri is quite happy for a few hours when he presents his new things to his grandpa first and then to Otabek via FaceTime. 

But there’s another problem. For quite some time after his growth spurt, he bumps his elongated limbs and his head on everything he sees—or doesn’t see. It seems as if he outgrew his body and is now unable to assess distances, which makes him moving fucking clumsily all the time. Mila dubs him ‘Klutzy Kitty’ and constantly makes fun of him when he’s training.

A positive outcome of growing up is that he’s finally able to lift her like she always did when he was shorter. Another one is that after growing his first peach fuzz he finally loses the nickname _Russian Fairy_. He hated that anyway. For two weeks he grows a ridiculous mustache he only shaves when Mila insists because she can’t stop chuckling at the sight. Maybe it’s also because Phichit comments on Instagram that he looks like a ‘70s pornstar. 

However, he still hasn’t completely adapted to his new body. Sometimes he feels like he’s trapped inside a stranger. When he looks at himself in the mirror he sometimes sees a stranger too. The high cheekbones don’t look feminine any more, even though his hair is as long as Victor’s was when he was his age. 

The similarities end there because he likes to wear his hair in a massive messy bun instead of open and he only lets it flow on special occasions. Sometimes he touches his face like a blind person and tries to find himself behind the mask he’s wearing. He’s convinced that he turned out strange.

***

“I think you’ve become quite handsome,” Otabek says when Yuri shares these very intimate thoughts with him and Yuri immediately has to hit him on the back for that.

“Sometimes I wish you weren’t so fucking honest!”

“Ouch, that hurt. You’re getting stronger,” Otabek says with a frown. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Not being able to control your own strength is one of the joys of growing up.”

They are spending two weeks together in St. Petersburg in July, training in the mornings and wandering through the streets and drinking tea in the afternoons. “I know it’s a stressful time and you definitely shouldn’t waste too much time off the ice, but I feel you need a little holiday,” his coach had said. “We can concentrate on the next season afterwards.” Yuri has the feeling that Lilia played a crucial part in his forced time-out but the woman wouldn’t admit it even if he threatened to secretly fatten up her protein shakes with melted butter. 

_Well, he’s here. Let’s make the best of it._

Yuri is now able to look down on Otabek and constantly reminds him of this fact by commenting on his messy hair. 

“I never realized that it sticks up here. And here. And here.”

“Stop it.”

“But it’s true.”

Growing up has another advantage, Yuri finds out. Being taller than his best friend makes him more confident and a bit less self-conscious about wanting to touch Otabek casually. It’s a need he first noticed in the changing rooms during the last Grand Prix; the urge to touch grew stronger and stronger. It reached its peak when Otabek stepped through the doors of the airport where Yuri picked him up in Grandpa’s old Saporoshez, now with a new mud guard Yuri ordered from eBay. 

In the millisecond his brain needed to recognize him, Yuri also noticed that he had missed Otabek a lot more than he had been consciously aware. The other man looked so perfectly touchable then Yuri didn’t know what to do with himself. So he just gave him a firm, very strange handshake that he immediately felt was completely unfitting of the situation.

“Are we doing manly handshakes now?” Otabek asked with a half-grin.

“Just get in the fucking car,” Yuri grumbled.

Since then he’s thought about how to address the subject and he decides that today must be the day. In less than three days Otabek’s time in St. Petersburg is over, and Yuri wants to deal with this now. They are strolling through the half-empty streets aimlessly, a very relaxing calmness between them. So he tries to be brave and explain why it is absolutely necessary to become more touchy-feely without sounding too needy or too clingy or too weird.

After some stuttering and cursing from his part, Otabek stops him with a quick gesture.  
“Don’t overthink it.”

“You don’t mind?” Yuri asks and tries to mask his nervousness with a cocky grin. He’s almost perfected those.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Seems natural to be close to you,” Otabek simply says and gives him an unreadable look. “Like skating together, FaceTiming and writing letters.”

“Oh.” Yuri is glad he’s so tall and his hair is so long because he can perfectly hide behind the long strands. Maybe he was wrong about being more confident. This is crazy. Isn’t it?

They walk back home and of course he can’t touch him now that he has permission to do so. God, no. Never going to happen.

He gives Otabek a sidelong glance, noticing his tight his tight black jeans and his band shirt and his ridiculous boots he even wears in the heat of Russian summer. This is his best friend, for fuck’s sake. He’s the only one Yuri shares everything with and he would never make fun of him, he’s quite sure of that.

“What?” Otabek says when he catches Yuri staring. “What’s with that look? Want to hug or something?”

“Why would you think that?”

“That’s your hugging face.”

“I have a hugging face?”

“Sure you do. It looks exactly like this,” his best friend says and grimaces in a way that makes Yuri chuckle.

“I don’t look half that stupid, asshole.”

“I think we agree to disagree.” Otabek laughs. But his eyes are calm and very dark when he opens his arms. “Come here. I know you want it. Don’t be shy.”

Yuri takes a look around. There are too many people in the street for his taste and he doesn’t like that. You never know when one of his crazy fan girls will jump out of a bush with her smartphone in paparazzi mode. “Nah, too many people,” he says although the urge to simply hug Otabek is more than strong; it’s as if there was a magnetic pull between them.

“Okay,” Otabek says. “It’s a shame though. I would’ve liked that a lot.”

_Fuck it_. Yuri throws away all his pride and simply goes with the flow. When he cuddles into Otabek’s embrace he feels as if a dam inside him breaks.

After that he can’t keep his fingers off of Otabek any more. He finds out he loves to ruffle the other man’s carefully styled hair and scamper off afterwards in Catherine Garden. He also likes to casually brush his hand over Otabek’s when they’re meandering through Moscow Victory Park. When they take the metro, Yuri also sometimes puts his arm around Otabek’s neck. He tries to tell himself that he wants to keep him safe but deep down he knows that he only does it to keep him as close as possible in the short time they have together.

When he takes Otabek to the airport at the end of his stay, they hug for quite some time. Although they had quite a lot of physical contact in the last days they didn’t hug after the first one. Now neither of them seems to want to let go.

“Text me as soon as you’re back in Almaty,” Yuri whispers and deeply inhales his best friend’s scent one last time. He could hit himself for not embracing Otabek more often. This feels so fucking good. 

“Have a nice trip.” 

“I will.” And then Otabek turns and walks through the gates without looking back while Yuri tries not to tear up because shit, he’s a grown-up now and you don’t cry because your best friend leaves when you’re a grown-up. They’ll meet again during the next competition anyway.

Hours later, Yuri is already back home, he suddenly realizes something, and can’t stop smiling for hours. It was Otabek who had to put his head on his shoulders this time. 

***

Together with Yakov, Yuri listens to the music his coach has chosen for this season. The violin-dominated music for his short piece is very fast and will demand a lot from Yuri as far as stamina is concerned, especially at the end. The piece for the free program features a wind orchestra. It starts with a slow clarinet and flute solo at the beginning, changes quickly into a faster pace and leaves many opportunities for fast step sequences in the second half. Although it’s not his choice of music, Yuri is quite happy with it. At least the songs don’t suck completely. There’s only one more question to ask.

“So, what’s my theme?”

“Redemption.”

“Quite drastic,” Yuri murmurs. Redemption of what? Of not winning gold at Worlds after such an impressive senior debut? What does his coach want to tell him? He doesn’t dare to ask.

“Lilia and I think it fits,” Yakov simply answers. “Now get on the ice.”

At least the new program scores enough to get him into the Grand Prix Finals. It’s hard to get his body to move the way he’s used to but somehow he manages to do it. 

***

For the Finals in Marseille Yuuri and Victor come from Japan to cheer on him. They carry stupid banners and wear matching sweaters in blue, red and white. Yuri secretly suspects them to be knitted by Yuuri’s mum. “Yurio, _davai_!” Yuuri shouts and Victor waves happily, his ridiculous gold ring blinking. They look like proud gay dads and Yuri knows what the media will make of that when he gives in and waves back, so he snorts arrogantly and turns around to stumble onto the ice. He’s the second last skater to skate the free program. Afterwards it’s only JJ who’s left, JJ, who’s rocked his short program with a personal best.

Yuri shakes off all thoughts about his nemesis, inhales deeply, starts his free program—and immediately fucks up the first jump. Cursing under his breath he continues his routine although it’s the same as during his short program. His stupid body won’t move like it used to before he started growing.

The rest of his program goes the same way. It’s as if he sees himself skating and flubbing every jump, every step sequence just a tiny bit and noticing immediately that the person performing isn’t doing his best but just struggling to survive the routine. Yes, he knows that he’s a hellish perfectionist but he almost senses the judges notice his struggle too. 

Winning gold is impossible if he continues like this. He’s still good, even better than most other competitors, but he’s not as perfect as he was during the memorable Grand Prix when he beat Yuuri. This seems to have happened ages ago and he was another person back then, a person full of pride and arrogance, but also self-aware. Now he feels like someone else. Otabek also commented on that during their training session in summer. “You need more time to adjust to your new body, Yuri. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

Deep inside he knows Otabek is right. That it’s a miracle he even made it to the Grand Prix Finals this year. Other skaters in this condition wouldn’t have been able to compete in the same situation, they would take a season off to adapt to their new bodies. But he didn’t and pushed as hard as ever. Maybe even harder.

However, he also knows it won’t be enough just to try hard as you can. Effort alone won’t get you the perfect score you need to win. It’s adorable to want something. But that’s not all that matters.

He finishes the rest of his free program fixated on winning the gold medal and remembering to keep his head high, just as Lilia always tells him.

***

The scores come in after he’s finished; while sitting in the kiss and cry with Yakov, he processes the numbers with a distant feeling of emptiness. It’s not a bad score, quite good even for a mind as full of doubt as his, but also not perfect. He most likely might be ending up second or third, depending how well JJ does later.

Yakov knows that too. He once more looks disappointed but tries not to show it. Yuri suddenly remembers that there is a new boy Yakov trains now, a tiny ash-blond from Moscow. He’s still years away of being a serious threat to Yuri but when he looks at him he feels that Yakov has placed him nearby as a sword of Damocles, to remind him that he’s not irreplaceable. 

“Maybe JJ won’t make it this time,” the old man says, hits him on the shoulders and tries an encouraging smile. It turns out like a mask. Still Yuri appreciates the gesture because his grumpy coach has hope for him.

However, JJ’s performance is fucking flawless. The Canadian seems to be at the peak of what his body can do and skates with a certain grace Yuri’s own skating has missed for almost a year. He moves like an elegant but very strong racehorse, all muscle, all confidence.

Yuri watches the performance in a small room together with the other skaters. He’s glad that he isn’t upstairs next to the rink because he thinks that he couldn’t stop himself from fuming because he’s so angry with himself. He could’ve done better if he’d practiced more, he’s sure of that. 

When JJ’s score is announced Yuri’s heart seems to shatter. He’s grown in size during the last year but he’s still quick-tempered like his dad was and things like that don’t change overnight. What he really wants to do is smash the screen that shows JJ’s fake-surprised face but even for him that would’ve been far too extreme. So instead he slams his fist into the wall next to him. The pain hits him like a sledgehammer and he enjoys the feeling more than he should.

Minami, who’s standing next to him watching everything on screen, screeches and immediately shuts up when Yuri throws him a killer look. “I think you need some space,” he mumbles and quickly shoos out all the other people in the room. They all seem horrified. Yuri makes a mental note to thank the bubbly Japanese man later.

His fist hurts like hell. He’s so angry with himself he could claw his own eyes out. He doesn’t want to see JJ’s cocky grin and the cheering fans on the screen, all in full support of him. With shaking fingers he switches off the TV.

It’s unfair. He trained so hard all year and now there’s still a skater more skilled, more focused, more grown-up than him. Was winning the Grand Prix at fifteen all he could accomplish in his miserable life?

Suddenly tears sting in his eyes. He tries to channel the strange sadness he feels into more anger but it’s gone. He’s just incredibly disappointed in himself and knows that Yakov is too. After Georgi retired last season it’s only Yuri left to make him proud in the Men’s division and he disappoints him _again_. Heck, even his grandpa might lose faith in him now. Who is Yuri Plisetsky if he can’t win? “Shit,” he whispers.

He feels Otabek’s presence in the room before he sees him. He smells Otabek’s scent before he turns around. Yuri shudders under silent sobs. His friend mustn’t see his face because now he’s crying like he hasn’t cried in a very long time. The Ice Tiger of Russia doesn’t cry—the Ice Tiger of Russia slaughters his prey and grins, or he kicks others and shouts at them. He’s a fierce beast, not an ugly weak crybaby.

Otabek’s hug is gentle and strong at the same time. He embraces Yuri from behind so that they don’t have to look into each other’s faces and just holds him while Yuri bawls until no tears are left.

Finally he’s able to turn around. Otabek’s gaze is clear and unreadable and makes Yuri wriggle in his arms uncomfortably. “Don’t run away,” the other man says calmly. “I’ve got you.”

They stay like that for a while, Yuri staring into Otabek’s eyes, mesmerized by their sheer darkness. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Minami.”

“I see.” Yuri rubs his nose. “Sorry, I think there might be snot on your clothes,” he mumbles with a raspy voice because he doesn’t know what to say else. He suddenly remembers that it is Otabek who ended up second. He’s only third, still on the podium but behind his two biggest rivals. However, Otabek doesn’t seem to be too annoyed about losing to JJ. “Why are you not angry?” he asks. “Why are you not angry you couldn’t win gold again?”

“I did my best and so I’m proud of myself. And JJ can’t win forever, Yuri. In one or two years it will be your time to shine.”

“But I want to shine _now_!” Yuri cries and realizes that he sounds like his bratty teenage self he thought he’d left behind. His cheeks are wet again with tears he didn’t know his tear ducts could still produce. This time he doesn’t turn around though but let Otabek see his ugly crying face, his red, snotty nose and his distorted mouth.

The other man watches him calmly and holds him tight before Yuri can’t take it any longer and buries his face in the nape of Otabek’s neck. After a few moments Otabek starts petting his head very gently. The feeling of strong fingers on his scalp sends shivers through Yuri’s whole body and evokes faint memories deeply buried in his brain.

“You’re an ugly crier,” Otabek says matter-of-factly.

Yuri wants to kick him for that, but instead starts chuckling hysterically between sobs. “And you are too fucking honest. But you’re right. I have to stop.”

“You know, my granny often says that there’s no use being upset more than ten minutes over something you can’t change. More crying won’t solve the problem anyway.”

“Your granny is a wise woman,” Yuri sniffles and wipes off his tears with a harsh gesture. “So what’s her solution then?”

Otabek hums and smiles before he answers. “She always says that I’m allowed to vent for exactly ten minutes about things like that. Afterwards she usually gives me one of her stone hard candies and tells me to stop whining immediately. And then she won’t listen to my complaints any longer.”

“So that’s what we’re going to do?”

“I think you had your ten minutes already.” Otabek has a strange expression on his face that turns out to be a grin. “JJ won, yes. You lost again, yes. You can’t change any of that now. So let’s stop crying because we must fix you up for the award ceremony. Need a tissue?”

Yuri grimaces, playfully kicking Otabek.The other man’s lips turn into a full-fledged smile. It’s a delightful sight he wants to see much more of in the future.

***

“Maybe we should go to the banquet and try socializing for a change. Maybe something fun will happen that cheers you up. Like at that famous banquet with Yuuri Katsuki,” Otabek says after the award ceremony and the interviews they both managed to survive quite successfully–Otabek tried to be a bit more charming than usual and Yuri accomplished not blowing up when a journalist asked him why he was underachieving again today.

“The banquet in Sochi?” Yuri’s brows furrow when remembering the memorable night. The night Victor fell in love. It was blatant that Yuuri wrapped him around his little finger with drunken speeches and hip grinding and the hilarious dance battle. How could Yuri forget the whole pole dance action that followed? It was hilarious after all. “Yeah, let’s go,” he says. “Maybe it’ll be fun.”

***

Later at the banquet Yuri and Otabek once more watch the other skaters from the sidelines. “Do you think somebody spiked Minami’s drink?” Otabek whispers. His breath tickles Yuri’s ear and he suddenly feels as if all his nerve endings gathered in his earlobe.

He decides to distract himself by watching the others more closely. They drink juice or champagne and eat the finest finger food French cuisine can offer. Phichit takes one hundred selfies and two hundred pictures of all his friends. Minami seems to be unable to get over the fact that he’s just competed with other top-notch skaters. His face is bright red and he grins constantly. Guang-Hong sticks to Leo the whole time, touching his hands casually. Yuri can finally understand the joy of doing that. And Emil and Michele? It seems as if the tension between them only escalated since two years ago. Sara, who’s also there and won gold in the female division, can only grin when watching them from the other end of the room with her boyfriend, a gigantic French ice hockey player who looks as intimidating as an angry bull mastiff.

Yuri feels calmer now, even with Otabek looking hot in a tightly fitted black suit and elegant shoes. At least his hair is as messy as ever and his gaze dark and mysterious. For Yuri he looks more like a handsome Disney prince than Phichit ever did.

“What?” Otabek says when he notices Yuri looking at him.

Shit. He’s been staring. Yuri feels his face turning hot and curses his stupid body that betrays him over and over and over again when exposed to Otabek’s presence. “Nothing.” What’s wrong with him today? He’s behaving even more awkward than usual.

When he turns away from Otabek’s unreadable face, he sees Yuuri and Victor entering the banquet. Someone must have invited them, maybe Celestino or Yakov, their former coaches. Yuri watches Victor gently touching the small of Yuuri’s back, who melts into the touch and blushes. Their happiness fills the room like warm, vanilla-scented massage oil. Yuri sighs, rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his pomegranate juice he was served in a very fancy-looking tumbler. “It might take some time before the katsudon gets pissed enough to dance. He looks awfully sober to me.”

“Maybe we should spice things up then,” Otabek says.

Yuri turns around and fixates on his friend who has a completely innocent look on his face. “And how would we do that? Do you suggest getting drunk and start pole dancing half naked?” He furrows his brow to get the thought out of his head. There are things about the last banquet of his junior division career he doesn’t want to recall in vivid detail. Some of these include a certain Swiss ice skater in horribly tight underpants. “No thanks.”

“Well, that would be a bit extreme. Let’s start by dancing. On the dance floor. Fully clothed. What do you think?”

Yuri perceives everything but can’t process anything. It’s as if he’s hearing things that aren’t really there. “W-what?” he stammers.

Otabek puts his drink away and reaches out to Yuri. There’s a slight grin on his lips. He has been grinning an awful lot today, Yuri could get used to this sight. “Come on. Are you going to dance with me or not?”

Nobody comments on them entering the dance floor hand in hand and soon Yuri loosens up a bit. In his head, he sometimes has this tiny voice that tells him everybody would judge him for being so close to Otabek when in fact nobody bats an eye in real life.

The choice of music for the dancefloor is insane, but they nail the traditional polka that comes first, then there’s swing, and they are even able to pull of a relatively respectable Viennese waltz because Otabek leads. Where he touches Yuri’s hands and back, his skin seems to be melting. Although he’s desperately trying to fake outer calm, he’s dying on the inside. Does Otabek see—or worse, feel—that he’s sweating like crazy? His palms are so wet he’s afraid his hand will slip out of Otabek’s.

But even if the other man realizes that his dance partner is nervous he doesn’t comment. He just shakes the night away with him, dance style after dance style. Yuri is surprised he didn’t know that Otabek was such a good dancer. Yes, they text a lot more these days than they did at the beginning of their friendship, but texting only tells you so much about another person, he has to admit that now.

Yuri also has the feeling that the other man understands so much more about him than vice versa—his social media channels reveal a lot about him. Otabek still doesn’t use social media often, although his friendship with Yuri had some influence and he now sometimes posts pics on Instagram. But there has never been any hint that he likes dancing so much. It seems out of character at first but when Yuri accepts that fact and that he’s not that skilled when it comes to classical dances, it’s quite fun.

Then the music changes to something sickly romantic. Yuri _ughs_ and makes a face. “I feel couples incoming.”

“Still want to slow dance?” Otabek asks.

Yuri ughs once more. He has stated more than once that shit like this is not his kind of shit. But his best friend seems to enjoy himself and so he can’t say no, can he? “If you want to. I could force myself.”

“Come on. It’s gonna be fun.” Otabek takes Yuri’s hands and drags him closer. “See it as a challenge.”

Yuri is too overwhelmed by Otabek’s scent to object. Memories of their shared night wash over him like Hasetsu’s waves. It must be the aftershave Otabek’s wearing tonight, it’s the same it was when they slept in the same bed. The subtle scent, mixed with something else that is completely and purely Otabek, is chiming Yuri’s olfactory memory like a tiny golden gong. A strange chain of thoughts bubble up in his mesmerized brain.

Otabek is the perfect size for slow dancing. For hugging. And for kissing.

Yuri flinches.

“Why are you so tense?” Otabek whispers into his suspiciously sensitive ear. The music booms so loudly that what he says is almost inaudible.

Yuri feels himself blush. He can’t think straight, not with the other man being so close and smelling so good and his own face feeling so hot. “Fuck,” he spits out. “I need to go.”

He wriggles out of Otabek’s embrace and makes his way to the exit. Everything around him seems foggy, he can’t even clearly see the other guests, let alone Victor who sends him confused looks from the buffet while Yuuri stuffs his round face with petit fours.

Otabek catches up with him when he’s almost left the building. “Stop!” he shouts and Yuri whips around only to see him standing in the empty hallway, completely out of breath, looking as bewildered as Yuri feels. “Why were you running away?” he asks and it sounds sad. Hurt even.

Yuri doesn’t want to hurt Otabek. That’s the last thing he wants to do. He just…

He…

He doesn’t really know what he wants. “I’m so fucking confused!” he blurts out without thinking, his stomach raging in chaos. “I don’t now! I—Fuck!”

Otabek is standing right in front of him within a heartbeat. Although he’s looking up from beyond he still feels much taller than he actually is. It might be the determination in his eyes that makes Yuri shiver—or something else he can’t really grasp.

“Yuri,” Otabek says very quietly, almost whispering. “I’m just as confused and tense as you are.” A gentle hand comes up to Yuri’s cheek and gingerly touches him. It feels as if being brushed by a feather. He can’t help it, he sighs deeply and is surprised about the sounds he’s able to produce. Does he really sound like that when he’s—

Well, what on earth is he? It’s high time he finds out. Suddenly he feels he’s had enough of chickening out and running away.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmurs, turns around and grabs Otabek’s hand without looking. It happens out of sheer impulse but his strong grip feels good. It feels right. And it’s satisfying that Otabek didn’t lie when admitting he was nervous because his fingers are trembling too.

***

They ride the hotel elevator to the sixteenth floor. It takes forever to get up but Yuri doesn’t dare to let go of Otabek’s hand. He’s afraid that he might lose his confidence when doing so, or even worse, Otabek could vanish into thin air and he might wake up realizing that nothing of this strange night ever happened. But the silence between them is getting somehow uncomfortable. It’s not the same as the other times when they didn’t have to say much because everything was crystal clear between them, like them being best friends and shit. Now there’s something else, something unspoken.

The silence also gives Yuri time to think.

Otabek’s palms are damp. He doesn’t look at him and just stares straight ahead. Yuri studies his face in the elevator mirror, glances over the high cheekbones, the sharply cut eyebrows, the clear-cut chin. The other man is indeed handsome. Deep down Yuri knew that before but he always accepted that as a sheer fact, not as something more extensive. Now, however, they are holding hands. Why? That’s what he wants to find out. It’s time to be as bold as Otabek for once.

Yuri takes a deep breath. “Are you gay?” 

The other man doesn’t answer right away. He seems to be very determined not to look at Yuri. Finally he lowers his gaze. “Yes. Yes, I am. I always have been.”

“I see.” Why Otabek has never told him, Yuri doesn’t know. He can only guess his friend’s intentions to keep quiet about such an integral part of his life but decides that he must have had his reasons. When Yuri thinks about it they never talked about these things, maybe because Yuri stated quite clearly that he wasn’t interested in speaking about them, which might have nipped all discussions about them in the bud. He could hit himself for that now. I’m such an idiot.

“Are you in love with me?” he continues his investigation.

Otabek doesn’t need to say anything in return. His posture tells everything and so much more. That he’s afraid of Yuri’s reaction and terrified of his rejection.

The elevator pings and they finally arrive at the sixteenth floor, the floor of Yuri’s room. His suite has a king size bed and a gigantic bathtub, he suddenly remembers that. Still holding hands they step out of the elevator.

“Come,” Yuri says. His room is just around the corner and they reach the door in a few heartbeats, their hasty steps muffled by the red carpet floor. With his left hand Yuri fumbles the key card out of his suit pocket and opens the door. He steps inside and wants to drag Otabek into his room as well, but he just stands there not moving an inch of his body.

“What’s wrong, Beka?” Suddenly the nickname Yuri wanted to use a million times and tried on his tongue two million times just comes out of his mouth naturally.

“You don’t care?”

“No.” And that’s not even a lie.

Otabek looks very confused and incredibly vulnerable. “But what about you? Are _you_ gay, Yuri?”

Yuri is impressed by courage he didn’t know he had in him. He tries a cocky JJ-style grin and thinks he manages to convey the message quite well. “I don’t know. I don’t care at the moment. But let’s find out, what do you think?”

When the door finally accepts the key card, they stumble into the room and Yuri kicks the door shut with his foot. Yuri lets go of Otabek’s clammy hand and initiates their first kiss quickly before all his confidence goes out of the window. It seems like the right thing to do, kissing his friend but he has never done that before. So he just tries to mimic the couples in Yuuri’s favourite romantic comedies he always pestered Yuri to watch with him. The kiss has too much tongue from Yuri’s part and makes both of them chuckle, which is good because it helps them calm down.

“I’m bad at this,” Yuri admits. They are standing in the middle of the room, strangely entangled. “That sucked. Sorry for this.”

“You can’t be good at everything.” Otabek wipes saliva off his chin with one hand and tilts his head. It’s good seeing him find his confidence again—Yuri hopes that he never again has to witness the vulnerable side of Otabek. He likes the cool-headed version of the other man more, the one that knows exactly what he has to do and when. Because Yuri doesn’t know what to do next. Kissing Otabek was one thing, going for more is another.

“So, I’m only good at two things: ice skating and swearing,” he says and stares at Otabek who stares back. “What now?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I have no fucking clue.” And that is the truth, Yuri’s mind is completely blank. The only thing he can think about are his wobbly knees and that he feels awfully insecure compared to before. When was that? It feels like ages ago.

“Do you feel comfortable?” Otabek’s hand wanders up to his face and caresses his cheeks. Yuri leans into the touch and closes his eyes when he feels the brush of calloused fingers on his skin. The feeling changes into something deeper, wilder, when Otabek touches his upper lip very tenderly. A soft sigh escapes his half-open lips. 

Otabek exhales audibly. “Would you like to continue perhaps?”

“Yeaaaaah… Yes.”

“Can I kiss you properly then?”

Yuri nods weakly. There’s a strange feeling in his stomach, a feeling he faintly remembers from years ago when he and Otabek shared a comfy bed and fell asleep. His knees weaken when the other man leans in for another kiss. This time he lets it happen, enjoys the feeling of soft lips on his. Otabek is gentle, so fucking gentle. Of course he is. 

“Bed?” he is only able to utter when they pause because he can’t breathe any longer. There must be a trick to breathing and kissing at the same time. He just can’t figure how it works.

“Bed. Sounds good,” Otabek says. “Try to breathe through your nose next time.”

And then he shows him everything.

***

“Can I open your zipper? … Can I quickly slip out of my shirt? … Should I take my pants off? … Would you mind touching me here? … Can I touch you there? And there? … Would you like me to suck—“

“Otabek, stop asking,” Yuri moans and rakes his nails into Otabek’s bare back. 

 

***

It’s dark inside the hotel room, only a sick half moon casts a bit of light. Yuri doesn’t mind. He likes the darkness that embraces both him and Otabek. It makes asking embarrassing things easier too.

“Since when?”

“Since you grabbed my hand at the Grand Prix. When Yuuri won. Do you remember?” Otabek touches Yuri’s face again and puts a blond strand of messed up hair behind his ear.

Fuck. He likes this gentle gesture a lot. It’s good that it’s so dark because he’s quite sure he turned borscht red again. Nothing Otabek did with him before made his heart beat faster. Isn’t that strange? “Hell yeah,” he says to divert himself. “I was so fucking pissed. How could you fall for someone so pissed all the time?”

“That’s the reason I noticed you in the first place. Being angry and bold and beautiful all at the same time.” The sheets rustle when Otabek moves. “I know that you don’t like being called beautiful but I regret nothing. You are. I wanted to be there for you ever since. To be a friend and a lover. To be by your side.” Another gentle touch, this time on Yuri’s neck. “And you?”

Yuri doesn’t know what to say. When did he fall in love with his best friend? He doesn’t know. Now that they’ve done all these things with each other he feels as if it has always been like that. “I’m not sure,” he says. “Maybe I always was. In love, I mean.” Saying it out loud still feels a bit awkward. He promises to himself that he’ll never say the L-word to anybody else except Otabek. “I think I was too stupid to see it though.”

“Should’ve said something sooner.”

“Maybe.” Yuri leans in for another kiss. “Could’ve been more attentive as well.”

“It was quite apparent. I was as subtle as a baseball bat.”

***

Like so many times before, Yuri stares at his naked image in the mirror. The hotel bathroom is so much cleaner than his bathroom at home. He expects to look different after his first night with another man, but nothing seems to have changed, instead showing a very familiar image. The harsh lights illuminate each and every part of his face perfectly, mercilessly showing everything. He can see every swollen pimple, every blackhead, every imperfection. He’s eighteen now but still puberty is raging from time to time, especially when he finds himself in stressful situations. Fuck all stories that tell you you’ll wake up handsome and refreshed after the first time you’ve had sex, shouldn’t crossing third base be enough? But he just looks like a mess with bed hair and skin blemishes. “Bah,” he shows his tongue to his own mirror image.

“Good morning to you too,” Otabek yawns when he walks into the room butt naked, a sight Yuri could most definitely get used to. He places himself behind Yuri, hugs him and buries his face in Yuri’s tangled hair, a gesture that evokes memories of last night and makes Yuri’s ears instantly turn pink in the neon light. “What are you staring at?” 

“My face.” Once more he draws a grimace. “Do you see this gigantic fuckass of a pimple? This thing has its own zipcode.”

“Nobody sees the pimple, except you. And you have a gorgeous face.”

“No, I don’t. Next to you, I look like a child.” It’s not only his face. Yuri can easily compare their bodies in the mirror. He’s so pale in the lights and apart from slightly broader shoulders his body is still slender and lean. There are more muscles, yes, but apart from a scrappy moustache and some stray chin hairs he shaves as soon as they show up, Yuri’s body still appears almost completely hairless. Only if you take a very close look you can see the tiny silver-blond hair on his upper arms and legs and a darker happy trail that ends somewhere between his legs.

Otabek’s toned legs are completely covered in coarse hair. He has defined abdominal muscles that feel phenomenal under Yuri’s fingers and gigantic upper arms and thighs. And Yuri realized last night that he’s totally in love with Otabek’s stray chest hairs and with the rough stubble on his chin and upper lip. Compared to him he looks nothing like a grown-up but like a gangly teenager with messy hair, especially when standing next to someone so utterly and entirely manly. 

“I still like it, all of it,” Otabek mumbles into his hair, kisses the back of his head and lets go of him to shove Yuri away from the sink. “And now move, I need to wash my face.”

Yuri takes his brush from the counter and leaves the room. He sits down on the sofa and tries to detangle his knotted strands. As much as he likes his long hair he hates having to put so much care into it. Slowly he starts with the left side and soon he comes across a gigantic tangle. Maybe it wasn’t his brightest idea to just hop into bed with Otabek without taking care of everything first. 

The memory of their first night together makes his ears burn. They didn’t go all the way, although Yuri begged Otabek—apparently you can’t just bang another man whenever you want, you have to prepare—but what they did was enough to keep Yuri’s mind occupied for quite some time. He’d like to repeat it very soon. “Beka?” Yuri calls out.

“Yes?” Otabek’s head pops out from behind the bathroom door. 

“Come here.”

“Now I can kiss your gross face again?” Otabek crosses the room, puts on his boxershorts and his suit pants and with three quick steps he stands in front of Yuri. He looks so handsome and gigantic although Yuri knows that he’s the taller one. But sometimes, he thinks, it’s not only your body height that makes you appear tall. It’s the confidence you radiate—and Otabek oozes a ton of it at the moment. He literally seems to glow. 

“So this is your very happy face,” Yuri says and is equally delighted when Otabek’s broad smile lightens up in a 1000 watt grin, something he’s never showed ever before.

“How could I not be happy,” Otabek answers and touches Yuri’s cheek. “Everything worked out so much better than I ever dreamed it would.” He sits down next to Yuri, draws him closer and they share a quick kiss for the first time in daylight. 

“Ugh, you stink,” Yuri whimpers. 

“Morning breath. I’d love to brush my teeth but my toothbrush is in my room.”

“Then go there. Change. Let’s go get breakfast. And then come back here.”

“When does your flight leave?” 

“6pm. Yours?”

Otabek jumps up from the bed and grabs his shirt and suit jacket from the floor. “Five. Well, then I’ll take my leave now. Meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes. I just happen to know the perfect location for breakfast.”

***

“Gawd.” Yuri’s belly hurts so much he can hardly breathe. Otabek knows what he loves most, namely carbs with a side of carbs, topped with carbs. At Mama Shelter’s, a fancy place with modern decor in the 5th arrondissement of Marseille, he is able to cram down as many cakes, waffles, pastries, and quiches he wants from the brunch buffet until he thinks he can’t continue. Fooling around with your boyfriend all night seems to make you hungry as hell. 

“You know, I just called you boyfriend in my mind,” Yuri says and is surprised by his own boldness. “So just to make sure, are we...?”

Otabek raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure why you have to ask. But yes, Yuri Plisetsky, I consider you my boyfriend, my lover, my sweetheart, my main squeeze, my—”

“Jesus fuck, stop it.” Yuri’s face turns hotter than his steaming mug of delicious black tea with organic cream and brown rock sugar. 

“If you want, I could come up with even more synonyms. You know, somebody once called me ‘a fucking dictionary’. But I think I’ll get you some more waffles now, boyfriend.” Otabek gets up and ambles in the direction of the breakfast buffet. He clearly has a spring in his step and seems to be chuckling. Yuri rubs his face and _gaaaahs_. 

The other man returns soon with a platter full of chocolate waffles doused in caramel sauce and topped with a mountain of whipped cream. There’s even a maraschino cherry on top and a decent amount of chocolate sprinkles. Yuri’s chest suddenly aches because Otabek knows his needs so well. Is a decadent Plisetsky breakfast ever complete without something chocolate-y? Nope. “Good boy.”

“-friend. You forgot the second part of the word. Enjoy your meal.” Otabek places the platter right in front of Yuri and leans back to watch him dig in, which Yuri gladly does just to end this embarrassing conversation and hide the fact that he’s turning red again. Stupid face. Stupid Otabek. Stupid racing heart.

He chews and swallows and chews until only a tiny wedge of the waffle is left. “Lilia and Yakov are going to be so fucking pissed.” He chuckles when an image of his coaches pops up in his food-comatose mind, both fuming with red faces and telling him off while he pretends not to listen to them. “I’m so looking forward to it.” He sighs happily and wriggles to find a more comfortable position in his chair, which is quite hard when you are pregnant with a food baby.

“Annoying your coaches seems important to you,” Otabek comments. His expression is back to his official outside-of-the-hotel-room blank face but Yuri knows him better than to be deceived by it. Otabek is still amused. Very. Especially when Yuri nods enthusiastically to answer his implicit question. “Why?”

Yuri doesn’t really know how to explain. He remembers Yakov just choosing his theme, then being disappointed when Yuri couldn’t deliver. That he wasn’t allowed to use his own music. That Lilia took away his phone. So many things added up until he just wanted to annoy the shit out of them. “Since I’m losing everything, they want to control all aspects of my life. Maybe they always did. This pisses me off somehow, I guess.” 

“A very self-reflective insight, coming from you.” 

Yuri scratches his freshly-shaved chin. “Thanks, I guess.”

“But what does your desire to annoy your coaches imply?” 

“I don’t know where you get all these words and phrases from.” 

Otabek raises an eyebrow and grins. He looks very proud of himself. “I know. You adore that I’m so well-spoken. And you adore me.”

“Shut up.” Suddenly remembering their night together, Yuri’s ears feel very hot. 

“Answer my question.” Otabek’s voice is flat, but still he can clearly hear the teasing in it. 

Yuri pouts. It’s a habit he can’t get rid off although he thought he’d long outgrown it. “I have no fucking idea.”

Otabek starts eating some fruit salad and chews absentmindedly, so Yuri takes a look around and waits until he’s finished. The hip French crowd brunching here and the handsome waiters somehow intimidate him, especially because he can’t order anything because the fuckers refuse to speak or understand his accented English, so Otabek did all the talking. But Yuri has to admit that all people in the room look very cool and incredibly stylish. 

A young couple two tables over, university students maybe, stand out from the crowd. The woman has a round face but is very slender, dressed in light grey skinny jeans, black cowboy boots and a knitted black sweater he’d also like to own. Her auburn hair is braided in a messy French ponytail, a hairstyle Yuri’d like to try out soon, but what he likes most is her pretty nose piercing because it sparkles in the light of the room. All in all, she looks like a filmstar brunching here incognito. 

Her male company, a guy in his early twenties, stands out even more with his tanned skin and hip-length shiny black mass of hair. Yuri isn’t entirely sure but thinks the man could be of Turkish descent. His clothes look like nothing special at first but Yuri knows good style when he sees it. The shirt must be a second-hand band tee of an unknown metal band, the dark blue jeans fit perfectly as far as he can tell, and the brown pointed leather boots are to die for. The massive black full beard the man grows looks well-groomed and tapers off at the end point to give him a distinct pirate look. What adds to this image are the golden ear plugs he wears. They are not big but big enough to draw attention to his ears in a very appealing way.

“What would you like do to annoy your coaches more?” Otabek finally says.

Yuri turns back to his boyfriend. “Do you think I should do more than stuff myself ‘with poison’?” He mimics Lilia’s voice and grins. This last piece of waffle he couldn’t finish before looks damn delicious. He decides to wolf it down at last, just because he can. “And that you would help?”

“If that is what you want,” Otabek says with a deadpan face, “I’d love to be your partner in crime. So what is it you always dreamed of doing but never dared to actually carry out?”

Yuri looks back at the stylish couple and a mere heartbeat later he knows exactly what he wants to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: 
> 
> Yakov’s choice for the short program: Palladio (Karl Jenkins)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqmbz8W1-tA
> 
> Yakov’s choice for the free program: Among the clouds (Brian Balmages)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzSNXusaRos
> 
> Yuri enjoys Palladio more because it has a catchy tune. He thinks Among the Clouds is ok but a bit boring although he enjoys the changes between slower and faster parts. 
> 
>  
> 
> ***
> 
> These are some of the songs Yuri and Otabek dance to during the banquet. The music styles are very varied but I like to think that the one responsible for the music has a very weird taste and wants to challenge the figure skaters ;) (Maybe it’s Chris, finding a new passion in DJing at ice skating banquets after his retirement? Somebody PLEASE draw this, aaaah :D). 
> 
> Well, where was I? Oh, yes. My headcanon is that both Otabek and Yuri know the basics of classic and modern dance. Otabek is the dance expert though and Yuri has a bit of a hard time admitting that his friend is the better dancer. I imagine them laughing a lot while dancing!
> 
> Helena Polka (Lawrence Welk) - Polka  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAfnOU2wf7k
> 
> Sing sing sing (Benny Goodman) - Swing   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhyhP_5VfKM
> 
> Waltz No. 2 (Dmitri Shostakovich)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmCnQDUSO4I
> 
> Why don’t you do right (Amy Irving) - Slow dancing  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhV02C3LjXk


	5. Permutatio / Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri’s body and mind have evolved—now his skating has to change too. Two old friends agree to help him with figuring out his new self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Without my wonderful beta Strifenhart this fic would be a mess. A million thanks for everything <3
> 
> As always, find more notes at the end of the chapter.

“Maybe it’s time you changed something,” Mila says during one of their practice sessions in May. She wants to win a medal next season, no matter what, same as Yuri. Both of them couldn’t perform their best at Worlds a month before and Yuri still fumes when remembering that JJ won silver and Minami, of all people, won bronze and he won—shit. He couldn’t even be happy for Otabek’s gold medal afterwards because he was so mad with himself. Mila also couldn’t reach her goal to beat Sara for once, so both of them aren’t too happy about the outcome of the season. They decided to practice together even if it’s off season and they would be officially allowed to take a break from their training schedules. 

“You mean, changing more than ‘mangling my body’?” Yuri has gotten pretty good when it comes to mimicking Lilia’s shocked voice. Well, he had a lot of time to practice when shit started raining down on him at the airport in Marseille and continued to do so all way back home to St. Petersburg.

Mila snorts. “I thought of something more drastic. Maybe it’s time you moved on.”

“What do you mean?” Yuri skates ahead and tries a toe loop. 

It takes Mila only mere seconds to catch up. “Maybe you need a new coach,” she says. “Staying here in Russia might be what’s holding you back.”

“What’s wrong with Yakov?” He draws sloppy eights into the ice next to his rinkmate, circles her.

Mila bends back and raises her arms into an elegant posture and for a few moments they improvise a short pair skating routine before both fall out of it and continue their warm-up on their own. “Nothing is wrong with him. But I think, maybe, you two should take a little break from each other. After the incident, I mean.”

Yuri’s mind wanders back to the day after the Grand Prix, back to Lilia’s horrified look and Yakov’s red face and torn mouth when he showed up at the airport with two new additions to his body—a silver septum piercing and small black ear plugs he both got in a piercing studio he quickly looked up online before he changed his mind and chickened out. Yakov had looked like he’d suffered from an instant aneurisma, unable to say a single word. “What have you done to yourself?” Lilia hissed, as if he’d cut off his ears and replaced them with pointed elf ear implants. “Why did you ruin yourself like this?” Both of his coaches apologized later but their interactions stayed noticeably cooler for quite some time. 

“And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to find yourself a new coach,” Mila says. “I’m not saying you should leave Yakov and Lilia for good, but a bit of a break could be recuperative for all three of you. Just to calm the waves, you know.” 

Yuri shoots her a questioning look. “And who do you think this new coach should be? Those don’t grow on trees.”

Mila grins and flexes her biceps. The older she gets the stronger she becomes. “It’s not that you are on relatively good terms with a living figure skating legend. Who, as I might remind you, had to change his style completely after puberty.”

“I’d rather die than call Victor,” Yuri snarls.

Mila laughs. “Don’t be so overdramatic! Just think about it.”

***

At first Yuri puts the thought away. But then Otabek comments on his long hair during an extended facetime session and says: “You look like a punk version of Victor when he was younger. It’s a shame he’s not your coach.”

“That idiot? No thanks.”

Otabek rests his chin in his hands. He’s sitting in his room at home, Yuri can clearly spot all his trophies behind him in the bookshelf and he can hear his little sister Aziza giggling in the next room. He looks at Yuri for quite some time before he says anything at all.

“Yura, I’ve thought about this for some time now. Victor loves you. And Yuuri too. They both love you. You know that. They were at the last Grand Prix with their banners, cheering for you—and yes, I know you would never admit that you found that adorable, so stop pouting—but I know you like them too, you only have a hard time showing it.” Otabek takes a deep breath. “So give them a call, will you? I’m quite sure they could teach you a thing or two if you let them.”

***

It takes Yuri two more weeks to think everything through. Victor moved to Hasetsu after they sold their apartment about a year ago. As far as Yuri is informed they live a happy domestic life in Japan, cheerful as ever. Yuuri gained a few pounds, Victor’s hair is longer. He knows that because he stalks them on Instagram where Victor gleefully posts each and every little fart his beloved katsudon produces. Oh, and because he keeps texting Yuuko who gives him updates on everything without asking. And because he sometimes calls Victor for a quick chat and a bit of bickering over Skype, although he would never admit that to anyone. Aaaand because he likes sending them stupid unsigned postcards with cats and cakes and horribly photoshopped sights of St. Petersburg on them to show them what they left behind when deciding on Hasetsu as their home base. His friendship with Otabek has corrupted him over the years.

The call is awkward. Victor and Yuuri both answer, happily beaming into the camera. “ _Privet_ , Yurio! I’m so glad to see you,” Yuuri says in accented Russian. He clearly improved his language skills. His face is even rounder than the last time Yuri had checked his photos on Instagram.

“Stuffing yourself with pork cutlets, katsudon?” Yuri says.

Victor shoves his fiancé out of view lovingly and throws Yuri a look that would’ve left him a smouldering heap of carbon on sight if he was anywhere near Japan. “Let me speak to Yuratchka in Russian for a second.” After former skating legend, Victor Nikiforov, gives him a lecture about respect that make Yuri’s ears burn, he invites him to come and train in Japan. Simple as that.

“Don’t look so flabbergasted. Yakov called me a month ago and told me everything. He said you would most likely ask us to train you and of course we will. We miss you too.”

Soon after he starts packing his things, says goodbye to his coach and rinkmates and granddad, gets one last visit from Otabek who wishes him good luck and teaches him some new _things_ , then he ships his stuff to Japan—and here he is. He is ready for some action and ready to get started, thoroughly train and beat the shit out of all his rivals during the next Grand Prix. If this means to live in Japan for a while he can manage.

***

Yuri doesn’t like this shitty rink any more than he liked it when he first stayed in Hasetsu. It is too small, there is no one like Mila or Yakov’s new student Sergej, just the kids from Victor’s and Yuuri’s ice skating school, but they are only here every Thursday and Sunday afternoon for some hours of playtime, staring and fun. It is a shitty rink, yes, it definitely is. But it is where he has to win the gold medal.

After tying his skates, Yuri starts his morning practice with a quick warm-up on the ice. It is six o’clock and he is only able to get started so early because Yuuko gave him an extra key for the ice castle when he asked her. He skates in a flowing motion, feels the ice behind his feet, hears the sound of the blades cutting through the fresh surface.

He loves that sound. When he was a kid he had been so impressed by it that he begged his granddad to let him skate because of it. That ice skates were in fact knife shoes had only added to the fascination. Yuri smiles when thinking of his granddad. The old man gladly gave him permission to go to Japan to follow his dreams. (Not that he needed permission now that he was a grown-up but it felt nice to have it.)

“Do whatever moves you forward. But call from time to time, do you hear me? And don’t forget about Beka either. He’ll be sad when you’re gone.”

His grandfather accepted the man with the deadpan face as a part of Yuri’s life so effortlessly that Yuri wants to hug him all the time. Especially after hearing his grandpa call Otabek grandson when he thought Yuri wasn't listening.

He fondly remembers their first meeting some years ago, it was the night after their first selfie. They ate piroshki together at home and Grandpa taught Otabek how to play Durak. Their guest slept in Granddad’s bed because it was the best bed in the flat. Yuri had taken the couch so that his old man had a decent mattress under his suffering back. What he really wanted, if he’s honest with himself now was spending the night in one bed with Otabek.

Their second meeting was a bit more awkward when Yuri tried to beat around the bush about their relationship because he wasn’t sure how his Grandpa would react. But he simply ignored Yuri’s blabbering and turned to Otabek instead. “Does he treat you right? I’ll beat him up if he doesn’t.” Otabek simply nodded in amazement. “Well, then I’m getting the bed ready for you two. Please keep it quiet as long as I’m here. I need my beauty sleep.”

He also remembers Beka’s muffled moans later that night. He didn’t want to wake Grandpa up but Yuri had missed his boyfriend so much and—

No, he mustn’t think about Beka now.

The last time they saw each other was a month ago, the night of their last stroll in St. Petersburg, their last kiss and their strange last night together afterwards in Yuri’s room, this time much louder because Grandpa had tactfully decided for a spontaneous night in town with his old drinking buddy Wowa.

Since then they are back to quick text messages and snapshots from each other’s training. His heart aches when thinking about Otabek too much—so he forbids his mind to wander to him as often as possible. 

“You’re up early,” Victor yawns and Yuri is back in Japan in a heartbeat. He spots his former idol dressed in his favourite worn-down Russian team tracksuit at the side of the rink and skates towards him trying not to show any emotion except that he is slightly pissed.

“You’re late,” Yuri hisses. “Didn’t you tell me you’d be here at six sharp too? How am I supposed to win the next Grand Prix when my coaches have nothing better to do than be lovey-dovey all night? The walls of the inn are fucking thin, you know.”

Victor only smiles an adorable Victor Nikiforov smile. “Nobody demands that you stay at Yu-Topia, you know,” he says. “You can leave and get your own place whenever you want.”

“The food and the hot springs are too good to leave,” Yuri snaps. “You know that.”

“The food and the hot springs, you say?” Victor’s voice sounds playful. Annoying.

“Shut up, you old geezer. Tell me what to do. I don’t want to waste my time with chitchat.”

The next three hours Yuri is tortured with everything Victor throws at him. He practices the jumps, flips, toe loops and step combinations for his short program over and over again. After that he is so worn out that Victor announces he has to take a break.

“You’re getting better with your new routine. Yuuri did a great job picking the music, it fits your new image and your grown-up body perfectly,” the other man says while Yuri dries his sweaty forehead and hair with a towel. “The jumps during the first part look nice but make sure you don’t over rotate the second flip. You’re still young and you have a lot of power but it’s useless if you don’t use it to your advantage.”

Yuri can’t help it. He has to smile but turns away so that Victor can only catch a glimpse of it. Victor Nikiforov has just praised him. Yes, the praise was mixed with an insult, but still.

“Your face, however, is a mess. If you look so tense it’s useless to skate in such a beautiful way. Your theme for this season is ‘Change’, yes, but please don’t try to look that intimidating. Has Lilia not taught you anything? You did much better during the last Grand Prix.” Victor’s voice is still cheerful but there is something else now. “You looked like a young deer on the ice, I almost started crying during your performance. And now? You seem a little frustrated. Unhappy even. Is it still because your body has changed?”

Victor has only partly hit bull’s eye. Yuri has almost made his peace with the fact that he’s a different person now but he still doesn’t really like his dangling limbs and his broader shoulders. He is completely unable to pull off the Russian fairy any longer which he fully realized after his crushing defeats last season. Even the ice-skating experts in their stupid online forums say so. He must finally adapt to his new body and start liking it—and this is the main reason why he is here, with Victor, who knows a lot about having to change your programs and cutting your hair because you outgrew your image of the pretty boy.

“I’m not going to change my look for your stupid theme,” he still blurts out just to make sure Victor gets the message. The weight of his massive blonde bun seems to drag his head down but he likes it that way. “There has to be another way.”

“I’m sure there is and as I’ve told you we’ll find one. But for now focus on your face and on your happiness.” Victor presses his index finger to his smiling lips. “You can be a punk and happy at the same time, believe me. And there’s a crinkle forming between your eyes. If you aren’t careful it’ll stay there.”

Yuri glares at Victor. “I’m nineteen, idiot. I’ll stay this handsome for quite some time before I look as faded as you.”

His coach raises one slim, perfectly carved eyebrow, smiles a frozen half-smile and Yuri knows he’s overstepped his boundaries. “Back on the ice with you. I think you need some fine tuning when it comes to the second half of your short program.”

“How’s that supposed to make me happy? _How?_ ” Yuri cries.

“Skate. Now.” Victor’s voice doesn’t allow any back talk. “We’ll take care of your happiness later.”

***

Yuri feels every bone in his body after the morning training. He is completely and utterly destroyed when he slowly bikes back to the inn to get some rest before Yuuri would take over from Victor to train him in the afternoon. Although he is friendlier than Victor during training he is no less brutal when it comes to torturing Yuri with sit-ups, crunches, lunges and other exercises that make his muscles wince and turn him into a whimpering mess.

After a month in his care Yuri finally understands how he was able to pull off such an impressive, overly difficult program when he did the last program of his career. The elder man still has an unbelievable amount of stamina. Although he put on a bit of weight he is in astoundingly good shape for a retired figure skater—and Yuri knows that Yuuri will be nice to him but unforgiving as well if he can’t deliver. The thought of having to run after his coach, after the tough morning training, makes him shudder.

When he arrives at the inn he parks the bike and walks inside. Hiroko greets him with a broad smile. “Lunch is ready, Yurio,” she says in slow, carefully accented Japanese. “Please come to the dining hall.”

“Thanks, Katsuki-san,” Yuri says and follows her. He tries to pick up some Japanese during his stay here. It will also make insulting one half of his coaching team easier.

When he sits down the inn keep serves him brown rice with mackerel in miso broth and steamed veggies. It smells so good that Yuri has a hard time not drooling onto the table. “Enjoy your meal,” Hiroko says and leaves him alone to dig in.

After finishing everything he lets out a happy sigh and closes his eyes for a second. Yes, the training is hard. Yes, he would have liked to be closer to Russia so that he could visit his granddad more often and see Otabek. But he also knows that it was the right decision to come here. Two gold medal winners are coaching him for the next Grand Prix, he’s predestined to win if he survives their training schedule. Hell, he survived Yakov and the crazy prima ballerina so these two would be a piece of cake.

He lets himself sink back onto the tatami mat, staring at the ceiling. Victor told him on his first day here that visualizing what he wants is crucial when it comes to winning. “You must really want to win. If you really want something and then train your ass off to get it nobody can stop you.”—“What kind of mumbo-jumbo is this?”—“Just try. It might work.”

Although he’s never going to tell Victor, Yuri vividly tries to imagine beating his rivals, and especially JJ, at the next Grand Prix whenever he has the time. After two weeks of trying he can literally hear him cry in despair in his mind. “A new personal best for Yuri Plisetsky, the Ice Tiger of Russia.” And this time they wouldn’t say his self-chosen nickname mockingly; they would say it and mean it. Because he is a tiger. A wild and fearsome tiger.

***

“Yuuuuuri.” Victor’s voice sounds dangerously close. When Yuri opens his eyes he stares right into the ice blue eyes of his coach who squats next to him in a loosely bound dark green yukata. “You are a terrible student. Yuuri-chan is crying his eyes out in front of the inn because you missed the first fifteen minutes of afternoon practice. That’s not the way to win the next Grand Prix.”

Yuri wants to snap at him. He really wants to. But he doesn’t because Victor is 100% right, at least this time. Imagining things alone won’t be enough. He has to train hard. Harder as ever. “Guess I’ll be going then,” he says and clenches his teeth when a smug grin appears on Victor’s face.

“They grow up so fast.” Victor wipes off an imaginary tear. “I’m deeply moved.”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Yuri shouts. So much for being a grown-up this time.

***

Yuuri doesn’t tell him off, but he almost kills him during practice and does so with a docile smile on his round face. On his bike he is faster than Yuri and won’t even break a sweat when Yuri is wheezing and coughing and slowly dying. His coach doesn’t get mad. He shows his disappointment in another way.

“You must build up stamina,” Yuuri shouts from ahead. “You will out-perform JJ next time. He’s good but you will be better when I’m finished with you.” It sounds like a threat.

They finally stop in front of Hasetsu castle at sunset. Yuuri gets off his bike and stretches while Yuri collapses on one of the benches. It takes him several minutes to calm down and get his breath back into a normal rhythm. “You really wanted to off me this time,” he mutters.

“Of course not. I want you to become stronger,” Yuuri answers cheerfully. “I want you to succeed. Victor and I both want that. And we want you to be happy.”

Yuri can’t help himself. He _must_ roll his eyes immediately. “Not you too. What’s with all that happy talk today? And how is that supposed to happen?”

“Wait and see. Wait and see.” Yuuri’s grin is a perfect copy of Victor’s and this makes Yuri’s stomach suddenly boil with anger. These dorks are so in love it makes him sick.

“You two are not my dads. You are my coaches. Your job is to make me fit for my next season, not to change my mood.”

“You’ve only been here for a month. We will do our job if you do yours.”

Anger bubbles in Yuri’s intestines. “Am I not doing great?”

“Yes, you’ve already mastered the first bits of Victor’s new routine. We are very proud of you. And now it’s your job to be happy.”

“For fuck’s sake! Quit saying cheesy things like that, you make me wanna throw up.”

***

Back at Yu-Topia, Yuri is once more drained in sweat and after grabbing two onigiri and a protein shake from the fridge he trudges upstairs to his room. He wants to change out of his sweatpants and tiger print shirt into something more comfortable and crash on his futon. “I’m done. See you tomorrow at six,” he mumbles half-asleep. 

“Don’t forget to keep it quiet tonight,” Yuuri shouts from behind. Victor, who waited for them both with a smug grin on his face, laughs and pours himself another sake. He’ll never learn to let Yuuri do this for him because otherwise it might be considered rude. Although he’s adapted to every other Japanese custom, it seems he just can’t get this one into his head. “Yuuri’s right, Yuratchka, the walls are quite thin. Or so I’ve heard.” He’s already quite tipsy.

Yuri is too tired to come up with a snarky comeback to Victor’s comment. Why would he be concerned with the thin walls? He is quite certain he is too tired to even jerk off. Not that he even wants to jerk off. Idiots.

When he crawls up the creaky stairs he almost falls asleep. Yakov and Lilia were merciless coaches—or at least so he’d thought before coming here. And now he has two more merciless coaches, both of them ready to train the shit out of him and destined to make him happy…? What ax-crazy shit is that?

When he finally reaches his room, he almost stumbles over a pair of biker boots standing right in front of the door. He angrily kicks them away with the last bit of strength he has left in his muscles. Which idiot puts his stinking boots right in front of his door? Which idiot even enters a Japanese house with shoes? Which idiot in this inn needs biker boots anyway? Which—

And then he gasps.

And whips the door open.

Otabek is sitting in the middle of the room, dressed in a tight black shirt, his favourite worn-down leather jacket and black skinny jeans. A gigantic military backpack is standing right next to him. He looks tired as hell and his hair is even messier than normal. He is clearly the best sight Yuri had since leaving Russia.

“You’re here,” he whispers and runs over, jumps his best friend and hugs him so tight that the other man moans in pain.

“Yura, you’re killing me. Be gentle. Please.”

Yuri doesn’t care. He rubs his face all over Otabek’s stubble, inhaling his musky scent. It is as if he injected himself with a too much caffeine. No matter how hard he trained all day, the sight of Otabek alone is enough to wake him up again like a bucket of cold water. His heart flutters from happiness and joy. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he mumbles and buries his nose the soft skin of Otabek’s neck. “So glad. But why are you here?” He can’t think of one reason why.

“Your coaches invited me,” Otabek caresses Yuri’s hair with his calloused hands absent-mindedly. The gentle touch almost makes Yuri melt. “They called and said you lacked motivation and needed support. So we decided that I pay you a visit and train with you for some time. Two weeks exactly.” He now gently removes the elastic hairband from Yuri’s bun and detangles the long strands with his fingers. “Is it true? The strong tiger needs support?”

“They called you.” For a heartbeat Yuri is angry with Yuuri and Victor. How dare they to know what he lacks most. But Otabek is here. In his room. He is really here. Yuri’s grin is so wide his mouth corners ache. He leans forward, places a rough kiss on Otabek’s mouth and enjoys the velvety sensation of his lips. “Fuck, yes, I need support. I need you. Oh, I’ve missed you so much! I wish you’d never leave again!”

“Then I’m glad I came. And I have no intention of leaving, at least not for the next two weeks,” Otabek says and takes Yuri’s face in his hands to deepen the kiss. 

Later, his boyfriend long asleep in his arms, Yuri caresses his soft hair and pets the shaved patches of hair on the sides of his head. He is wearing his hair a bit longer now and Yuri finds it incredibly handsome. The longer his curls are the softer they get, which meant that Yuri’s fingers have more fun playing with the strands. Otabek making sweet purring noises in his sleep because of this is the perfect bonus. Yuri sighs. He is completely and utterly in love. Embarrassing.

He drags the other man into an embrace and sighs once more out of pure bliss. His legs hurt and he is tired as hell but he is so fucking happy.

And this somehow pisses him off.

Yuri knows he has to thank both his idiot coaches in the morning. He is quite sure that Yuuri was the one to call Otabek and ask him to come. During their time in St. Petersburg together, Yuuri became quite good in reading his feelings.

But Victor had most likely also played a crucial part. Yuri could imagine them perfectly discussing all the little details in their room, forming a plan of keeping him occupied with training all day so that he wouldn’t see anything coming. Both giggling like little boys because of their genius. Those jerks. Maybe he should kick them. Maybe he should shout at them.

“Damn it,” he mutters.

It is useless. They will still know that he loves them dearly no matter how hard he tries to convince them otherwise.

***

Otabek’s new apartment is so Otabek that it practically seeps his essence out of the freshly painted walls. In some parts it still looks bare but its owner tried everything to make it cozy and presentable before showing it to Yuri.

It’s the 1st of November and in a month they will be on the ice again as competitors in St. Petersburg at the Grand Prix Final. This will be their last chance to spent time together before the last phase of practice starts. Yuri begged Victor constantly to let him visit Otabek before his coach let him go. “Make the most out of it. I called Lilia, she’ll stay with us for some time to brush up your ballet skills. You won’t have time for lovey-dovey things then.”

So Yuri is gifted with two short days in Almaty. It’s his first time in the city and he wants to go sightseeing, but first he wants to see Otabek’s place. There is a huge mahogany desk with unfinished letters and calligraphy practice, a gigantic black book case with coffee table books, tons of nonfiction and a large collection of CDs with classical music, mostly waltz and swing and of course all of his trophies. A glass shelf over the worn-down couch displays trinkets and knick-knacks like pebbles and shells from various beaches, driftwood, a golden Maneki Neko Yuuri gifted Yuri who regifted it to Otabek without a second thought, and a blooming pink orchid. On the wall in the kitchen between family photos Yuri spots their first selfie and some other pictures they took together. Other pictures show snapshots Yuri sent Otabek years ago, like the one of Mila and him pair-skating when he was sixteen (Mila is dressed in one of Georgi’s costumes and Yuri has a pout on his face most of the time because she made him wear a woman’s costume). The small kitchen nook is filled with cookbooks and spices in little tins. In the narrow hallway, there is a whole pinboard dedicated to ugly postcards from Otabek’s family and his friends. Yuri stares in amazement for some minutes before he wanders on.

Finally he opens the door to the tiny bedroom. Inside there’s only a queen-size bed, an elegant floor lamp and a lush green potted plant on the windowsill because Otabek stores all his clothes in a wardrobe in the living room. On the walls Otabek hung some of his art, all painted in delicate brushwork. However, his attention is drawn to something different—Yuri’s horrid first and last calligraphy attempt framed in a black metal frame and positioned right above the bed. He’s never touched a brush again after mailing the preposterous thing to Almaty.

“You kept that?” he says and climbs the bed to get a closer look. It’s still hideous, there are dried blotches of ink and there is also a fingerprint in one corner. However, it was the best product of weeks of trying.

“Of course I kept it.” Otabek crawls onto the bed behind him and embraces him from behind. The slatted frame squeaks under his weight when he starts caressing Yuri’s neck. “I got it from you. I’ve kept all your presents.”

“Even the salt dough bear I made you for Christmas two years ago?”

Yuri remembers the time in Victor’s flat perfectly. Yuuri was once more happy to teach him the art of crafting. The outcome, however, was a monstrosity of epic proportions. Even Yuuri couldn’t help a chuckle when seeing it and Yuuri almost always keeps a straight face. At first, Yuri wanted to toss the bear in the bin immediately after it came out of the oven, but he sent it anyway because he was running out of time and couldn’t think of anything else. Otabek thanked him politely when it arrived and then they never spoke about the bear incident again, which Yuri was very thankful for.

“Yes, I even kept the bear.” Otabek’s touch goes down from Yuri’s neck to his back and even lower. He pushes the back of his longsleeve up a bit and his fingers start fondling the small of Yuri’s back in circling motions.

“But… it was so ugly,” Yuri sighs. Oh, he’s missed these touches so much. Even this bit of physical contact makes him want to jump Otabek immediately and push him into the sheets. But he endures.

“Yeah, you are not the best crafter on earth. But you try hard to impress me and I adore that,” Otabek says. “I keep the bear in a box though. But sometimes I take it out and look at it and think of you and—“

“Stop being so fucking romantic or I’ll shut your mouth with something hard,” Yuri whispers, turns around and kisses him. _Fuck endurance._

***

When he gets back to Japan, Yuri goes back into training even harder than before. Their shared training sessions showed him that he has to work more to beat his boyfriend this year. Otabek has definitely improved his flexibility even more and his jump combinations are top notch. He’s an even bigger threat this year than he was all the times before. Yuri has to catch up with him or he won’t make it this year either. Lilia does her best to make sure that this happens and his short program works better and better.

Today all his four coaches are at the Ice Castle to see his progress. He shows them the short program that Victor choreographed for him. The music Yuuri picked is a fast electronic piece by an Austrian Indie band that contrasts greatly with the aggressively-looking step combinations, loops and jumps Victor wrote into the program. Because it is so short Yuri will have to grasp the judge’s attention from the first second on.

When he finishes his presentation he’s out of his breath but feels quite happy with himself. That the music and choreography are so vastly different makes it difficult to skate the program, but he thinks he did quite well. However, his coaches seem to have a different opinion.

“What? Spit it out!”

All four of them look, well, underwhelmed at most. They share strange looks with each other and nobody wants to start, it seems.

“Drop the prima ballerina already,” Victor demands after Yuri gives him a death glare. “I know you practiced ballet with Lilia in the last weeks mostly but I didn’t ask her to come to turn you into a ballet dancer again. You are neither ballet dancer nor pretty boy anymore. You are a man now. I know it’s easier to fall back into old routines but that’s not the way you should be going any longer. If you don’t have any inspiration left, you’re as good as dead, right?”

“As sad as it is, Vitya is right,” Yakov sighs and earns a mock hurt look from Victor. “I couldn’t see it but the image we tried to project on you doesn’t fit you anymore. You are stronger, better now. You don’t need to rely on ballet to make you graceful. Plus, the world has seen Yuri Plisetsky, the prima ballerina, constantly for the last few years. It’s time for change.” 

“You can still be a piece of art in another way,” Lilia says. “Although it hurts to let you go as one of my students. But with these shoulders you can’t be a ballerina any more. And with all that metal in your face.”

“You’ll find your way! We believe in you,” Yuuri adds and gives him an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up. “Just be yourself.”

Yuri just loses it. Yes, he wanted to behave today but some things never change, not even when you’re nineteen and considered a grown-up in most countries. “I appreciate your feedback. I really do. But could you now please all get the fuck out of here? Thank you very fucking much,” he hisses. At least he managed not to shout but he can feel his left eye twitch. 

“What about your free program?” Victor asks.

“What a nasty attitude,” Lilia complains.

“Jesus Christ, just leave already! I’ll talk to you later! Bye!”

After Yuuri has shuffled them all out silence falls over the Ice Palace like a snowy blanket. Finally, Yuri can think again. He’s able to skate the short program perfectly. He just needs to work on his expression more but he’s positive he can do that. If he’s finally allowed to skate as he wants, this will work out somehow but that’s a problem for another day, maybe tomorrow.

There’s a more urgent issue he has to work on though. He isn’t finished with the free program he was allowed to choreograph himself for the first time. He’s already chosen the music, a pop punk piece by a British alternative rock band. Although it’s only slightly over 100 beats per minute he knows that he’ll be able to include quick step sequences and quite a few jumps in his program. The choreography must fulfil its duty to startle and excite the audience but he still isn’t entirely sure how this is going to work.

He skates to the middle of the rink. With a remote he starts the music, takes his first position and vibrant bass fills the room. Then a vivid drum and guitar solo starts and as always almost knocks him out of his skates with its power. The music pumps through his veins and he just lets it drive him wherever it takes him. He tries out different jump combinations, flips and steps until it’s getting dusk outside and his belly rumbles in anticipation of katsudon and miso soup, a feast that very likely is waiting for him at Yu-Topia.

“One last time,” he mumbles and restarts the music. Once more the track starts and his heart beats even faster. 

_Drop the prima ballerina._ He pictures Victor’s face in front of him, handsome as ever, a smile on his face. 

_It’s time for change._ Yakov shows up in his mind, expression stern and strict but apologetic at the same time. 

_You can be a piece of art in another way._ There’s Lilia, thin lips pressed together but her eyes warm.

 _Be yourself._ Yuuri is last, his round face friendly and emphatic. 

It’s not that easy to be yourself though. Not when you were pressed into a mold that never really fit you for such a long time. 

But that’s over now. Yuri tries the jump combination he did before again and lands it perfectly. His body finally seems to behave again. He’s able to move gracefully, he feels powerful and more in charge of what he’s doing. 

They are right. He can’t stick to his old routines any longer. It’s comfortable somehow, doing that, but he has to be honest with himself that he’s long outgrown his own image. He’s different now. So much has happened in the last few months and this has to show, must show, in his skating.

Suddenly he remembers what Otabek told him on their last day together. “I’m glad I got to know you when you were younger. But I’m also glad I know the new you.”

“Because you can kiss me and fu—”

Otabek had shut him up with a laugh. “Yes and no. I’m happy that we can do these things. But it’s also nice that I could see you grow up and become less tense. It suits you.”

The thought of Otabek’s skillful fingers in his hair makes him calm down every time he feels mentally worn out, and he channels the feeling now. Suddenly he feels a change in motion. His body moves better, more precise. How is that even possible? Isn’t the whole idea of practice and competition so that you are focused and that your body feels focused too? He has only ever skated like that, with 100% focus on what’s important—winning gold. 

But maybe that’s not the only aspect there is. Maybe he’s supposed to feel something else when skating. Peace? Fun? Joy? 

Himself, maybe?

The piece ends and he stops in the middle of the rink. Once more. This time with less tension, less ballerina attitude and more Yuri. 

And all of a sudden it seems to click. Everything he skates goes neatly together and the whole program works like a top-notch zipper on one of his expensive skating costumes. When the music stops for the last time he just holds the finishing position for half a heartbeat, then stumbles off the ice and almost cuts himself when he puts on the skate safeguards because his hands shake so much. Hastily, he scribbles everything down in a handwriting that would make Otabek wince.

Then there is only one more thing to do. He grabs his smartphone from the bench and dials Victor’s number.

“You have to see this, Victor!—Fuck, I don’t care that you just sat down for dinner, get your lazy ass over here!—No, not tomorrow morning, NOW!—You must see this! Hurry!”

***

His mind is completely blank during the performance. Every jump, every squad, every _everything_ is perfect. Thinking about it is not necessary; his legs and arms move on their own.

Yuri knows he is at the peak what his body is able to do and he also knows that he looks perfect in his black and orange costume, created by the Italian designer he has been modelling for since autumn. The orange Swarovski crystals sparkle in the spotlights when he leans into his last spread eagle.

He urged Victor and Yuuri to torture him even more after Otabek left. He wanted them to push him as much as they could handle until he felt if he pushed any further he would die. And then he went over the edge and trained even more. It was hard to lose everything he has taught himself to impersonate over the years and find himself again. But when he saw the video Yuuri took of his last skating practice he was proud of himself the first time in forever. His skating looked vastly different and yet he liked it because he looked comfortable. 

The judges’ opinions are not necessary. His whole body tingles because he knows, he knows he’s just won the Grand Prix. His program is fucking flawless.

When the music stops he falls down in the middle of the ice after his finishing pose and sobs as he did after his first win. But this time it’s because he is completely certain he did it, not because he thinks he fucked up.

He gets himself together, skates off the ice and there is Otabek in his free program costume. It is as hideous as ever. Having fashion icon Yuri Plisetsky as boyfriend helped to improve his general wardrobe but didn’t do anything to his horrid costume choices.

Yuri couldn’t care less. Jubilantly, he jumps into Otabek’s open arms and they hug tightly in front of the camera and the whole fucking world. Being the protégé of Victor Nikiforov-Katsuki, and his husband, certainly made him not give a shit what others might think. And that he finally accepted that he likes to hug his boyfriend whenever he fucking feels like it. 

“Well done, Yura. I’m proud of you.”

They squash on the bench for the kiss-and-cry. Yuri sits in the middle and is almost choking because there’s so little space. Yuuri and Victor take turns in patting his shoulder quickly and telling him how proud they are while he snarls at them playfully. Otabek sits on the right, their bums touching. Yakov and Lilia tactfully stand next to the rest of them and only seem to be slightly uncomfortable.

Yuri wants to hold Otabek’s hand but somehow he feels that this is something reserved for more private occasions—especially when two of his four coaches can’t stop touching each other. Sometimes he thinks these two don’t have a bone of shame left in their bodies, especially after marrying in secret when he was in Almaty visiting Otabek. “Could you two please stop for a second? It’s my time to shine, not yours to make out,” he hisses. Yuuri chuckles, but obeys.

When the judges announce the final scores everyone starts shouting and cheering. Otabek is second by only three meager points, Guang-Hong surprisingly is third. Yuri is first as expected and strangely calm. He smiles dutifully into the camera and waves at his fans. The whole Katsuki family, the Nishigoris, his grandpa and of course all the crazy girls from Yuri’s Angels deserve this, all of them being his devoted fans for years.

When he has fulfilled his duty he gets up and Victor shoots him a questioning look. “I need to clean up before the award ceremony,” Yuri explains. “I’ll be back soon.” Otabek follows him without having to be asked about it.

They vanish in one of the empty changing rooms where Otabek tenderly opens Yuri’s zipper in the back and helps him wriggle partly out of his sweaty costume. The chilly air makes Yuri shiver a bit. He shakes even more when Otabek pushes aside one of the long strands that escaped his braided hair and places a chaste kiss on his bare shoulder. “You looked so beautiful on the ice, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.” He hands him a towel so that Yuri can dry himself before putting on the clammy costume again.

“You don’t have to look away. Stare at me as much as you want.” After Otabek has closed the zipper Yuri turns around to face his boyfriend and kisses him. “It makes me hot and you know it.”

“Oh, I will. Forever and ever.” Otabek returns the kiss and plays with the Madonna piercing Yuri got in late August. Then Otabek’s soft, velvety lips brush Yuri’s chapped ones and wet them with the tip of his tongue and suddenly he feels not cold at all any more. “If you want me to I’ll never leave your side. Just say the words,” Otabek murmurs. 

“Of course I want that, you idiot,” Yuri purrs and wraps Otabek’s neck with his arms. His fingers caress his hairline. He’s glad his boyfriend kept his undercut after all these years. Although this kind of haircut went out of style some time ago he feels that it wouldn’t be the same to touch Otabek’s head without the feeling of freshly shaved skin under his fingers. “I never want you to leave. Ever again.”

The other man smiles into the kiss. “It’s good to hear. That’s why I’ve prepared a little surprise for you.” Suddenly his eyes look more determined than ever and Yuri’s heart has the insolence to simply skip a beat. It gets worse when Otabek reaches inside the pocket of his tracksuit jacket and takes out a small black box. For a second Yuri fears that he might have a heart attack. 

“I personally would have preferred a more romantic occasion but I know that you are not into that kind of, as you would call it so eloquently, ‘shit’. And I’ve promised myself that I’d do it as soon as if you won gold again.”

“What’s going on?” Yuri’s voice squeaks as if he was fourteen again and experiencing his vocal change.

Otabek puts another kiss on his lips. “Calm down. It’s a not marriage proposal.”

“Yeah, of course not. Who are we, Victor Nikiforov and Yuuri Fucking Katsuki?” Yuri says innocently. He opens the box and there is no simple thin platinum ring inside although Yuri can almost feel it on his finger, fitting perfectly. Maybe he’s a teenie weenie bit more romantic than he admits to himself. He closes his eyes and opens them again.

No, that’s most definitely not a ring, it’s a key. The key to Otabek’s flat in Almaty, he knows that odd shape—and there’s a little golden cat keyring that goes with it, so it’s undoubtedly his. He looks into Otabek’s dark eyes, eyes so full of love he feels the urge to eat him alive right now.

“I thought that this would be a nice step. Living together off season in Almaty. I already asked Yakov and he says it’s okay as long as you practice with me and my coach. You could teach me a thing or two as well.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mischka could move in too. We could get a second cat if you’d like.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know I’ve got a really large bed with a firm mattress. And it would only be a few months in summer, so—.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yura, please, you’re freaking me out,” Otabek whispers insecurely. “Will you move in with me or not?”

***

He hears the Russian Anthem and sees Yuuri and Victor and Lilia and Yakov in the distance, their faces proud and beaming. Guang-Hong shuffles next to him. When he turns to the other side he sees Otabek’s unreadable face and instantly he’s afraid that he’s going to shit glittery rainbows very soon if he can’t calm down immediately.

_Living together. Oh. My. Fucking. God._

He can perfectly imagine the flat, their flat, crammed with their stuff and truly their place. Yuri would definitely bring his cat and then they would visit the local shelter to get Mischka a playmate. Then he would unpack all his clothes and scatter them everywhere (the small wardrobe would burst soon) and then they would make piroshki in the tiny kitchen nook, preferably naked except for silly aprons. And of course they would need a TV and Netflix. How are you supposed to cuddle in front of the TV if there isn’t one? _So many things to do. I want to get started._

When Yuri accepts his gold medal he feels the key in his pocket pressing against his thigh. It’s warmer than a thousand suns. He’ll fix the ring issue later, he promises himself. 

But first, gold at Worlds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music for the short program: Alien Breed (Codes and Keys)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i79vJ469kjU&t=16s
> 
> Music for the free program: Come home (Placebo)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFnvkypksPI&list=PLIF0xQ52m3qY4BMU-IaD4nbNxPCfLfmAz
> 
> The music choice is unconventional for figure skating as far as I can tell with my very limited knowledge on the subject. But I believe a skater as skilled as Yuri could make it work—and let’s be honest, classical music is simply not his shi—, erm, style.
> 
> ***
> 
> I tried to find any rules and regulations on piercings. What I could find was this: 
> 
> "The clothing of the competitors must be modest, dignified and appropriate for athletic competition, not garish or theatrical in design. Clothing may, however, reflect the character of the music chosen."
> 
> Source: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/01/21/figure-skating-fashion-rules
> 
> So if Yuri wants to be a Russian Punk wearing his piercings should be ok according to the rules (as long as they don’t interfere with his skating).
> 
> ***
> 
> http://trashbambi.tumblr.com/post/154282315980  
> That’s what I imagine Yuri to look like in the end of the story. Simply perfect. I almost cried when I discovered it.
> 
> ***
> 
> More than two months of writing, researching and editing are over and almost half a year later I’m finally finished with this fic. Hooray!!!
> 
> I'm currently writing on a rewritten and more detailed version of it in German which might or might not get posted this summer because I realized that this one has some flaws I want to get rid of. Still I'm pretty proud that I finished this project although I wanted to quit very often while this was still WIP. Thanks again to my beta Strifenhart - without you this wouldn't have worked out. I was even a bit sad when I read your very last comment in the shared Google docs ;) 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it as much as I had while I was working on it. Comments, feedback (yeah, even critical feedback!) and kudos are highly appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my very patient beta [Strifenhart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strifenhart) for explaining every mistake I made in great detail. Because my first language is German she had a tough job clarifying my writing, shortening my sentences and pointing out grammatical, lexical and logical errors. We also had to find a way to communicate over several time zones. However, everything worked out perfectly. Kudos to you!
> 
> ***  
> Notes: 
> 
> I used the timeline established in this post. http://lazuliblade.tumblr.com/post/153162723488/the-year-in-yuri-on-ice  
> So the first chapter takes place in 2013/14. (I decided to completely ignore the Olympics because of... reasons.)
> 
> ***
> 
> For those who can’t remember anymore, here are the two pieces Yuri used for Agape:
> 
> Short program: In regards to love: Agape  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQxLhJaFGQ
> 
> Free program: Piano Concerto In B-Minor: Allegro Appassionato  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bzi1hPTVEM
> 
> I’ll add the music Yuri skates to in the next chapters as well. I’d be delighted to hear what you think about the choice of music. And don’t forget to leave comments, feedback and tell me what lines you liked or didn’t like :)


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